China Unicom announced Wednesday that it has severed ties with 45 Internet service providers (ISP) involved in the use of cell phones in pornographic business in the past month.

China Unicom has launched a campaign to investigate all of its contracted Internet service providers. Once a service provider is found to use the short message service to charge surfers for web porn, China Unicom will close its transaction and web interface within 24 hours.

China Unicom also investigated all services charging more than 15 yuan (US$1.8) per month to see whether they are related to web porn.

A nationwide crackdown on pornographic websites kicked off in mid-July, and is currently in full swing. The campaign is to rein in what the central government perceives as the harmful influences of the Internet in a country where usage has exploded in recent years, with 87 million users.

China Mobile announced last week that it would intensify its crackdown on pornographic websites which use short message services for communicating with clients.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2004)