It has been almost two years since the first clash between Tencent and Qihoo360 started. In case you have lost some previous plot as I did, please look it up on Wikipedia or on this blog. The boring news for today is, they are suing each other again!
Previously on 360 VS QQ War:
Tencent sued 360 for the “QQ Bodyguard” software which was released on Oct 29th, 2010. Tencent claimed that many functions of this software including “Accelerate your QQ”, or “Healthcheck QQ” are “damaging and violating the functions under the cover of helping users”, and are “encouraging users to delete some plug-in services, and replacing some ads on QQ’s interface.
So Tencent asked the defendant company to stop the vicious competition and apologize publicly with RMB 125million compensation. However, 360 refuted that “over 50% users are not willing to see ads inserted in IM softwares according to a ‘2003 China IM Market Research Paper’”, and thus “QQ Bodyguard is doing something catering to the benefits of the consumers.”
The result is that currently the “QQ Bodyguard” is not available on Qihoo360’s website any more.
Note that this is just one of the many disputes within these 2 years and there are still many cases unsettled and unsolved.
Even the clashes between the two have been very complicated and interweaved, they can still find out something new to fight against each other. The newest case will be called in court on September 18th in Guangdong province. This time, both sides demanded compensation claims.
This August, Tencent first handed over a document named “The value assessment of the brand damage of ‘QQ’” during the evidence exchange part, in which the company claimed compensation of RMB 734million for the brand damage caused by 360. And the other side surely does not agree with this report, and doubted that, “It is unacceptable, and it has clearly violated the objective reality and professional ethics.” Accordingly, Tencent is now working on an assessment again, the number listed there might be smaller than the first one though.
As a response to Tencent’s claims, 360 soon sued Tencent for anti-monopoly (that Tencent is making use of its market dominant place and forcing users to uninstall Qihoo 360 products) and the compensation required is RMB 150million.
[image credited to gadgetsrepublic]
they‘re enemies but more like lovers, just like a sweet couple.