A Chinese company has been fined 5,000 yuan for sending junk e-mails to Internet users, the Internet Society of China announced Monday.

It marks the first publicly announced penalty for the offence, following the enacting of a regulation in March on the administration of e-mail services.

The company, called the Hesheng Zhihui Enterprise Management Consulting Ltd., was found to have bulk sent e-mails containing advertisements to Internet users since January, according to the Internet Society of China.

The Guangdong provincial authority had fined the company and ordered it to stop such operations immediately.

Under the March regulation, commercial e-mails must be sent with "AD" in the title bar and senders must allow receivers to "subscribe" to the mail or "cancel subscription".

Offenders can be fined up to 30,000 yuan (3,800 U.S. dollars), according to the regulation.

Source: Xinhua