{"id":15001,"date":"2013-02-21T03:02:38","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T03:02:38","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-02-21T03:02:12","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T03:02:12","slug":"Baidu-s-15-Million-Lawsuit-Against-Qihoo-360-Headed-to-Court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=15001","title":{"rendered":"Baidu\u2019s $15 Million Lawsuit Against Qihoo 360 Headed to Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dispute revolves around Baidu\u2019s robots.txt files. Nearly all websites have robots.txt files that serve as a notification of what \u201cspiders\u201d \u2014 the web-crawling bots that search engines and other web services use to index websites \u2014 are allowed to crawl the site.<\/strong> This function exists to allow people to control where their sites are listed, and to protect their servers from being overrun by web-crawling spiders that have gone amok. Generally, if a spider sees in a website\u2019s robots.txt file that it has been disallowed from indexing the site, it simply moves on to the next website without indexing the site in question.<\/p>\n

But when Baidu added Qihoo\u2019s spiders to robots.txt files on its services like Baike to stop Qihoo from making use of Baidu\u2019s content, Qihoo apparently reprogrammed its spiders to ignore the robots.txt file and crawl Baidu\u2019s site anyway. Baidu\u2019s lawsuit contends that this constitutes a violation of industry practices and amounts to an illegal seizure of Baidu\u2019s intellectual property, and the company is seeking 100 million RMB ($15 million) in damages.<\/p>\n

Speaking with the China Business News, a Qihoo representative characterized the robots.txt file as a good-faith request, not a hard-and-fast requirement. Qihoo also stated that content from Baidu Images, its Baike wikipedia service, Baidu Music, Baidu Knows, and more should not be considered Baidu\u2019s intellectual property under copyright law because much of their content was submitted by users. (Not coincidentally, these are the same services Baidu is accusing Qihoo of using its web spiders to copy from).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what will happen with the lawsuit in court. The robots.txt file is not explicitly addressed in the law, but Baidu may be hoping to take Qihoo down with one of China\u2019s commerce laws that, in rather vague language, suggests that companies must compete fairly and respect publicly-known industry standards.<\/strong> But it\u2019s also possible that this lawsuit \u2014 not the first public spat in China\u2019s web industry over a robots.txt file \u2014 could spur the government to clear things up once and for all by passing legislation that addresses the robots.txt file directly.<\/p>\n

Baidu declined to comment on this story but did confirm to Tech in Asia<\/a> the basic details of it were correct and that the case will indeed be heard by the court.<\/p>\n

Sounds like Qihoo is up to some foul play!<\/strong><\/p>\n

via www.techinasia.com<\/a>
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