China had summoned the cloud units of Alibaba and Baidu to better control telecom network fraud, according to a report in Reuters quoting the country's industry ministry sources.
The two domestic tech giants had allowed users to access a large number of fraud websites on their cloud platforms, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in a statement on its official WeChat account, adding that it required them to correct the issues.
The MIIT's cybersecurity administration and the criminal investigation bureau under the Ministry of Public Security had jointly issued the summons.
According to the reports, MIIT reprimanded the two firms for linking to too many dubious websites, urging them to take the responsibility for abiding by China’s cyber security law and to rectify relevant issues within a specific period. Those who refuse to conduct rectification will be punished severely.
Alibaba Cloud and Baidu Cloud said they would "conscientiously implement the regulatory requirements," and "effectively prevent and resolve the risks of telecommunications network fraud," according to the MIIT statement.
China has been strengthening data regulation in recent years. China is building its own state-backed cloud system, while President Xi Jinping in April said the country would resolutely crackdown on telecom and internet fraud.
Together with the Cybersecurity Law, which has been in effect since 2017, China's first data security law came into effect on September 1 and the first law on personal data protection went into force on November 1.
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