China tightened its belt on mobile app developers in an attempt to monitor and crack down fraud, pornography, and spread of "malicious" rumors over mobile platforms, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced.

"A small number of apps have been exploited by criminal types to spread violence and terrorism, pornographic material, rumours and other illegal information," the regulator revealed.

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Under the newly-published guidelines issued on Tuesday, app stores and providers must now establish users' identity with real-name registration, keep track of users' activities for 60 days, monitor and report banned content postings, and secure users' consent before obtaining personal information, location, and contact lists.

 Furthermore, legitimacy of developers uploading apps should be verified as well.

"The regulations have been in the pipeline for some time and it's an exacerbation of the existing controls," Willy Lam, adjunct professor at the Center for China Studies, University of Hong Kong, said. "This is in the wake of an increase in the number of communications, which are seen as critical of the regime."

According to Bloomberg, draft laws over China's institutions and cyber-infrastructures have been submitted to the top legislature on Monday. Search-engine operators including Baidu were also required to clearly label and check advertisers before posting paid-for search results.

"There should also be a limit on the number of paid-for results on a single page. Moreover, the practice of blocking negative content concerning advertisers has been banned," according to the regulations.

The new policy will apply to both local and foreign developers, including Apple.

Tagsmobile app developers, cyberspace, Cyberspace Administration of China