Newshot MIIT: "Second-hand Number Renewal" Covers 259 Apps, 72 Non-compliant Apps Removed in Q3
IT Home, November 12: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) this month issued a notice on the quality of telecommunications services in the third quarter of 2026, introducing the relevant situation of telecommunications service quality in the third quarter of 2026 from three aspects: key work on telecommunications services, complaints and appeals from telecommunications users, and work requirements and service tips.
The MIIT guided basic telecommunications enterprises to continuously streamline and optimize tariff packages on sale and improve the convenience of handling telecommunications services, with the volume of online service handling remaining above 91% and video customer service serving more than 42 million person-times.
The MIIT carried out in depth the 2026 "Digital Accessibility for the Elderly China Tour" campaign, guiding 3,186 websites, apps, mini programs and other services closely related to the lives of the elderly and people with disabilities to complete age-friendly and accessibility renovations. The "one-key access to manual customer service" senior-friendly hotlines of basic telecommunications enterprises have served more than 800 million person-times in total.
The MIIT continued to optimize the "second-hand number renewal" service and improve the efficiency of unbinding historical internet application accounts. The service now covers 259 commonly used internet applications, has served more than 17.61 million users, and has received more than 1.05 billion applications for unbinding.
IT Home learned from the notice that the MIIT organized third-party institutions to conduct test calls to the customer service hotlines of some key internet enterprises. Regarding the public disclosure of customer service hotlines, no customer service hotline number was found within the Plants vs. Zombies 2 app; regarding manual customer service response, the manual customer service of Weibo, DingTalk, Tuyou Dou Dizhu, 360 Jietiao, Youku Video and Tuhu Car Care failed to connect within 30 seconds, and the relevant enterprises have been urged to improve their response capabilities.
The MIIT organized third-party institutions to carry out user satisfaction index evaluations of six categories of internet information services: online video, instant messaging, cloud storage services, map navigation, app stores and information/news. Overall service satisfaction rose slightly quarter-on-quarter, with satisfaction for instant messaging and online video improving noticeably, while satisfaction for cloud storage services and information/news was relatively low.
The MIIT organized 42 batches of technical spot checks on apps, ordering 967 to rectify, publicly notifying 163 and removing 72, with the compliance rate of apps on shelves rising 1.3 percentage points quarter-on-quarter. Among them, platforms such as Yingyongbao, Honor App Store, Xiaomi App Store and Baidu Mobile Assistant ranked at the top in compliance rate.
In the first three quarters, targeting issues such as false advertising and induced subscriptions, telecommunications administrations across various regions summoned for talks, issued notices, ordered rectification and imposed administrative penalties on telecommunications enterprises at all levels 324 enterprise-times. A special campaign to strengthen the standardized management of voice services was organized, deeply rectifying the problem of nuisance marketing calls, and 184 enterprise-times of non-compliant enterprises were ordered to rectify, supervised and penalized in accordance with the law, with 1,425 non-compliant voice dedicated lines and 525 SMS ports shut down; the 13-department joint governance mechanism was deepened, problem clues involving various industries were promptly transferred, 38 non-compliant marketing merchants were exposed, and 24 source enterprises of non-compliance were pushed for relevant departments to handle in accordance with the law, with the synergy of coordinated management continuing to improve.
In the third quarter of 2026, among complaints about malicious mobile apps, complaints involving cybersecurity issues accounted for 56.8%, complaints involving personal information and permission issues accounted for 27.5%, and complaints involving information security issues accounted for 15.7%. Through industry self-discipline, the Internet Society of China, together with app stores and security testing vendors, removed 53 problematic malicious mobile apps.