Sohu says a spam message sent by Sohu.com, which resulted in China Mobile suspending Sohu as a photo message supplier, resulted from an inadvertent technical error.

In a conference call with investors to discuss its one-year suspension by China Mobile, Sohu officials blamed unintentional technical errors for triggering the spam message to about 1,380 customers in the southwest China's Sichuan Province in mid-June.

Sohu says the impact of the error was enlarged because China Mobile was in the middle of a crackdown on abusive marketing practices in the mobile messaging market.

The one-year suspension and a recent move by China Mobile to cut billing rates for messaging services provided by Sohu and others will cut Sohu's third-quarter revenue by about US$200,000.

(CRI August 19, 2004)