Analysis The Case Of Tencent V Qihoo With Unfair Competition

Unfair competition has an enormous destruction to the normal operation of themarket economy. There are lots of concrete varieties concerning this act, of whichCommercial defamation is a typical one. Commercial defamation injures themarket’s competition order and the competitors’ legitimate rights and interests, so itmust be regulated by law. With the prompt development of internet in modernsociety, commercial defamation in the internet environment shows a characteristicthat is more difficult to define, therefore, how to exactly define the suspectedcommercial defamation becomes an issue that the legal profession has to face.In the unfair competition case of Tencent v Qihoo, the relative articles on "360net" and the monitoring reports of "360privacy protector" describe the scanning ofQQ softwares as peeping the users’ privacy, while Tencent believes that such actsinjured Tencent’s commercial reputation and constituted commercial defamation,hence, it filed a case to the court taking Qihoo Technology Co. Ltd., Qizhi SoftwareCo. Ltd., Sanji Infinite Network Science and Technology Co. Ltd. as defendants.There are two controversial focuses in this case: the first is whether Sanji InfiniteNetwork company is a proper defendant; the second is whether the defendant’s actsconstitute commercial defamation in unfair competition. After the first and secondinstance, the court decided that Sanji Infinite Network company is a properdefendant of this case and that the defendant’s acts constitute commercial defamationin unfair competition.Concerning the first controversy, Sanji Infinite Network company has thequalification of a legal person, so it surely has the capacity of the suing party, at thesame time, it shares the right to implement litigation, so it is a proper defendant ofthis case. About the second controversy, there exists competition relationshipbetween the defendant and the plaintiff, its acts fit into the characteristics ofcommercial defamation, and constitute commercial defamation prescribed in Article14of the Law of Against Unfair Competition, so they belong to unfair competition.