The Measures for the Administration of Internet Email Service announced by the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) went into force on 30 March 2006. The new measures clearly spell out rules governing the sending of commercial emails. Articles 13 and 14 of these rules may have an impact on the publicity and promotional activities of Hong Kong companies on the mainland.

The new measures are applicable to the provision of Internet email service, the provision of Internet email access service and the sending of Internet email within the territory of the Chinese mainland.

Under the new measures, Internet email service providers are required to obtain a value-added telecommunications licence or complete filing procedures for non-commercial Internet information service beforehand, and to register the IP address of their email servers. Internet email service providers must register the IP address of their email servers with MII or the telecommunications administrations at the provincial, autonomous region or municipal levels 20 days before the email service becomes operational.

As regards the two rules governing the sending of emails, according to Article 13, no organisation or individual may send emails of their own accord or on behalf of clients if they: (1) deliberately conceal or forge envelop information; (2) send email with commercial advertisement content to recipients without their permission; (3) fail to include the word "AD" in English or "guanggao" in Chinese character in the subject header when sending emails with commercial advertisement content. Under Article 14, if an email recipient has expressly agreed to receive emails with commercial advertisement content but later refuses to receive further mail, the sender must stop sending such mails unless there are other agreements between the two parties.

An email sender who sends emails with commercial advertisement content must provide its recipients with a means of contact, such as sender's address, for them to reject such mail, and must ensure that the means of contact provided is valid for at least 30 days.