Far from preventing illegal spam, large telecommunication companies 'lead the way'

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I often get text messages advertising loans or illegal gambling even without giving my phone number.

There are times when a few of these come in a day, but when we covered it, it was confirmed that large telecommunication companies are making a lot of money with these spam messages.

First of all, this is reporter Jo Ki-ho.

<Reporter Ki-ho Cho> These

are the advertisement messages and spam contents that office worker Seung-Hoon Choi recently received.

[Seunghoon Choi / Victim of spam text messages: I receive two or three full (spam text messages) a day.

How the heck did you know my number and texted me? It's very annoying.] The number of

mobile phone spam that a citizen receives per day has more than tripled from 0.09 in the first half of 2017 to 0.29 in the second half of last year.

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However, it is pointed out that the major telecommunication companies KT and LG U+ are responsible for this.

Currently, 95% of spam text messages are distributed through mass texting services.

It is a method in which a specialized agency makes a contract with an illegal loan or gambling company, and borrows a communication network to send text messages instead.

However, since KT and LG U+ jumped into this text message agency, which was mainly handled by small and medium-sized businesses, most of them took charge of spam and spread it.

In particular, since the second half of 2014, KT has been ranked No. 1 in the amount of spam sent for 7 years.

In the second half of last year, KT sent 35% of the total spam and LG U+ sent 21%, so more than half of the spam was handled by the two carriers.

KT sends the most spam related to finance, saying that it informs the so-called operating owner, and LG U+ sends spam related to illegal gambling the most.

[Park Soon-jang / Secretary General of the Citizens' Association for Consumer Sovereignty: KT and LG U+ jumped into the middle operators to secure customers and do business, so the spam rate has been maintained in the mass text service.]

Preventing and monitoring illegal spam It is pointed out that telecommunication companies that should be doing their own business are increasing side effects as they reach out to sales.

(Video editing: Kim Byung-jik, CG: Ryu Sang-soo, VJ: Jung Young-sam)

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As people's dissatisfaction grew, a system was developed to prevent such mass spam.

Then, it was confirmed that the telecommunication companies had found a way to avoid it and continued to operate.

The authorities responsible for managing these carriers are also difficult to avoid.

Continuing to be reporter Jeong Seong-jin.

<Reporter Jeong Seong-jin>

This is KT's text message sales email obtained by reporters.

She informs me that she has attached a document called 'Manual for Extraction of Report Spam Numbers'.

KT's own computer network gave the authorities a tip on how to pick out the phone number of the person who reported that he received spam, and wrote that he could send a text message without this number.

Enlarging an image

[KT - Bulk text operator call: It is a function that prevents sending of spam reports (numbers).

(Could you use a number other than that number?) Yes.]

This is the part where allegations of spam are being promoted for the sake of business.

[Hwang Dong-hyun / Professor of Computer Engineering, Hansung University: (KT) The indifference of the management is the first.

The second is, in a sense, a collaboration with the sales organization's meritocracy.]

Another circumstance is that telecommunication companies can stop spam.

During the period when authorities are interested and convening meetings, the amount of spam sent by KT and LG U+ actually decreases.

[Park Soon-jang / Secretary General of the Citizens' Association for Consumer Sovereignty: If you have a meeting with business owners, the spam rate will drop for a month.

In another month, the spam rate goes up again.]

At this meeting, KT also said that it would reduce spam if the authorities give incentives and benefits.

It is difficult for authorities to escape responsibility.

The current law imposes prison sentences or fines for text message agencies as well as companies that send spam text messages, but so far there has not been a single case of criminal prosecution by the authorities.

(Video coverage: Kim Won-bae, Video editing: Kim Byeong-jik)

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Reporter Jeong Seong-jin who covered this content is here.

[Reporter Jeong Seong-jin: KT explained various positions.

First of all, it is a measure for customers who report spam in the first place.

It means that they are guiding how to stop sending text messages, and on the other hand, the other party is requesting a text message from a company that requested it.

It's hard because we can't filter out the people who reported it. That's why he gave us the trick.

The Korea Communications Commission will confirm the real intention, so we will provide related documents soon.]

[Reporter Seong-Jin Jeong: Among the companies we respond to text messages, we directly went to a company with a rate of 0% spam sending and heard about the method.

Let's see this as a report.]

[The company said that it checks whether there is a risk of spam before the contract.]

[Hong Seung-pyo / Infobank i-message manager: At the beginning of the contract, it was about whether this company is a spam-sending company or not. I judge first.

If there is a will, you can ask in advance what kind of message this company will send.]

[And even after the contract, the company that is confirmed to have sent spam is canceling it immediately, so spammers say that they don't come to this company at all.

When I asked if other companies didn't do that, I replied with these words.]

[Hong Seung-pyo/In charge of i-message at Infobank: This spam can take a higher profit rate or something like that than the actual message.]

[Reporter Jeong Seong-jin: Right now, even if a mistake is discovered, the authorities usually only receive a fine of less than 10 million won.

However, as this spam can lead to secondary and tertiary crimes such as phishing and fraud, strong regulations are needed to punish the worker when spam is sent.]

(Video Edit: Lee So-young)