360.CN Chairman Loses Lawsuit against Kingsoft
BEIJING, Aug 30, 2011 (Menafn - SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) --Zhou Hongyi, chairman of top Chinese online security and privacy protection service provider 360.CN, was required by a count in Beijing to pay a compensation of CNY 50,000 to Kingsoft Corp. Ltd. (sehk:3888).
In addition, he should issue letter of apology on the homepage of microblogging products of Sina.com, Sohu.com and 163.com for seven consecutive days.
360.CN and Kingsoft are two major online security and privacy protection service providers in China and due to competition, a war of wards was launched between them in May 2010. On May 21 last year, many users of Kingsoft's webshield reported to the company that their webshield was uninstalled by 360.CN's security guard maliciously. For the issue, both companies issued statements in succession. Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360.CN, issued a total of 42 statements on websites including Sina.com, Sohu.com, 163.com and QQ.com within four hours in the afternoon on May 25. And in the statements, he criticized Kingsoft severely. Three hours later, Kingsoft took move on the microblogging product of Sina.com. In the after noon on May 26, Zhou bombarded Kingsoft again. In the meantime, Wang Xin, CEO of Kingsoft Security, a unit of Kingsoft, made a respond in her own microblog on Sina.com. On May 29, Zhou said at an annual conference for internet station masters that Kingsoft fell 12 percent on the day after he bombarded the company in the microblogging product of QQ.com and the target's market value thus dropped by CNY 600 million. Due to those, Kingsoft made a decision to sue Zhou for infringement at the end of last May and in addition to a compensation of CNY 12 million, Zhou was required to issue letter of apology on the homepage of microblogging products of Sina.com, Sohu.com and 163.com for seven consecutive days.
Zhou was required by the court of first instance to stop infringement at one, apart from removing 20 of the statements, paying a compensation of CNY 80,000, and issuing letter of apology on the homepage of microblogging products of Sina.com, Sohu.com and 163.com. However, both Zhou and Kingsoft appealed to a higher court. The higher court thought that Kingsoft Security was established in 2009 and the issues Zhou mentioned in the statements had no relation with it. Thus the number of statements that Zhou should remove was cut to two from previous 20 and the compensation was lowered to CNY 50,000 from previous CNY 80,000, too.
According to people in the know, the litigation fee Kingsoft paid to the courts reached CNY 110,000 in total.
(USD 1 = CNY 6.38)
Source: www.sina.com.cn (August 30, 2011)
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