Following the launch of a joint platform for dealing with spam mobile short messages in June 2009, the three major telecom operators in China have now each worked out their respective spam SMS screening services to help users block unwanted short messages.

Among them, China Telecom just formally launched a short message filtering service for its mobile phone users. The service allows mobile phone users to blacklist or whitelist their contacts. If a user chooses the blacklist, short messages sent by contacts on the blacklist will all be automatically filtered. If the user chooses to use the whitelist, all short messages received by the user, excluding those sent by the contacts on the whitelist, will be filtered. In addition, the service enables users to set a schedule for the filtering.

China Unicom has completed the development of three client terminal software packages with which the company hopes to form a short message firewall for users across the country. China Unicom plans to reveal more details in the coming weeks.

China Mobile has also just launched a special client terminal software for users to management their information by combining the functions of a short message firewall, private space and short message whitelist and blacklist. Being a free service, it can help users effectively filter unwanted ads, illegal short messages and pornographic information coming to their phones.