A draft law to curtail spam, which runs rampant clogging up mobile phone networks, has been rolled out by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Beijing Times reported.

Organizations and individuals sending commercial messages to mobile phone owners against their wishes could be fined up to 30,000 yuan (around $4,900), according to the new draft.

As traditional short message services are losing ground to WeChat, the Chinese version of WhatsApp, and Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, the draft defines "commercial messages" as voice and image communications sent via social networking services as well as text messages.

The new regulation may take effect next year.

Clouds of suspicion	Official warns mobile Internet against 'blood-tainted clicks'