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The Supreme People's Court of China (SPC) declined Qihoo 360's appeal for its monopoly lawsuit against Tencent, finally ending the three-year legal battle between the two internet companies.
The SPC said that current evidence were insufficient to prove Tencent's dominance of the market, despite the company having an 80-percent share of the PC and mobile-based instant messaging service markets.
Qihoo 360's legal battle with Tencent started in 2011, when the former filed a case against Tencent for "hindering market competition" and "abusing its market position."
Qihoo is a well-known software developer of 360 Security, an anti-virus program that has 445 million users in China. On the other hand, Tencent is popular for its social networking platforms such as WeChat, Weibo and QQ.
The issue started when Tencent introduced its own anti-virus program called QQ Doctor, which became the direct competitor of 360 Security. Qihoo, thinking that Tencent was trying to dominate the market, blocked QQ pop-up ads on devices that were using 360 Security. As a response, Tencent updated its software to block 360 Security, which forced consumers to choose which anti-virus program to use.
In March 2013, the Guangdong Provincial Higher People's Court ruled that Tencent Inc. did not violate the anti-monopoly law, ordering Qihoo 360 to pay Tencent 790,000 yuan for damages. The court maintained its position on the case that Qihoo's claims of Tencent market monopoly is unproven.
Tencent and Qihoo respected the court's decision, and both apologized to internet users for the debacle, as ordered by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
