Yesterday, China’s Supreme People’s Court handed down what ought to be the final legal decision in a tech industry dispute that dates back to 2010. The 3Q war is over, and Tencent has won.
The 3Q war, as it came to be known on the Chinese web, began in 2010 when Chinese web security company Qihoo 360 accused Tencent’s QQ chat app of scanning users’ computers and collecting information. Tencent struck back by not allowing users to log in to QQ if they had Qihoo’s app installed, and things went downhill from there. Nearly five years and a whole bunch of lawsuits later, the case finally reached China’s Supreme Court.
Specifically, the court was asked to hear Qihoo 360’s appeal of the Guangdong Higher Court’s 2013 decision in favor of Tencent. Qihoo 360 had sued Tencent for abuse of a monopolistic position after it forced users to choose between QQ or Qihoo software, asking for more than RMB 100 million in compensation for its losses. But the court found in favor of Tencent on the grounds that the company did not have a monopoly on the market. Qihoo executives disagreed and appealed the case to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down its decision, which rejects Qihoo’s appeal and upholds the Guangdong court’s ruling. Since there is no higher legal authority in China than the Supreme Court, that should be the end of this dispute.
That said, given that the bad blood from 2010 has continued to fester for years while this case worked its way through the court system, it’s pretty unlikely we’ve heard the last shot fired in anger between Tencent and Qihoo 360. The courts may have ruled that the 3Q war is over, but that’s not likely to change how the two competing companies feel about each other.
(Source: Techweb)
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