360 v. Tencent

360 vs Tencent is a dispute between two Chinese IT companies, Tencent and Qihoo, over competition practices that has escalated in November 2010, and hundreds of millions of users were forced to choose sides in the dispute.^[1] It is the first anti-monopoly case to be heard by the Supreme People's Court since the Anti Monopoly Law of China was promulgated.^[2]

At the time Qihoo, the producer of the anti-virus software 360 Safeguard, was a competitor of QQ Doctor, which gained 40% of the Chinese market overnight when it bundled with Tencent QQ. On September 27, 2017, Qihoo released privacy guard software that showed QQ's suspicious spying activities on its users. Tencent then responded with a fabricated report alleging that Qihoo was under investigation for ads involving pornographic websites, as that Qihoo was attempting to gain support from its competitors in the anti-virus front like Baidu, Kingsoft, and Kaspersky Lab.^{[citation needed]}

Later Qihoo alleged that QQ scans the installed programs in user's computer based on a "super black list", and attacked TenCent CEO Ma Huateng, saying he had been receiving government subsidies for housing. Qihoo also updated its privacy guard software to block ads in QQ,^[3] Tencent's responded by filing an unfair competition lawsuit against Qihoo and released an update that blocked Tencent products from running on machines with 360 Safeguard installed. Hundreds of millions of Chinese computer users were forced to choose sides in the legal conflict by choosing to, either uninstall QQ or 360's privacy guard.^[4]