Tencent Sues Vivo for Unfair Network Competition

According to an announcement made by the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court on Wednesday, the case of Chinese tech giant Tencent suing smartphone maker vivo for unfair network competition will be held on May 20.

This round of lawsuit concerns vivo taking advantage of the underlying system of smartphones in order to restrict users from normally downloading and installing MyApp as well as other apps by inserting pop-up windows, texts, buttons, setting risk detection, among other tactics. In addition, Tencent’s MyApp sued vivo for inducing users to download or install apps in vivo’s own app store to gain more traffic and commercial profit.

Previously, the court ordered vivo to immediately stop inserting pop-up windows, words, buttons and setting risk detection on vivo’s mobile phones that would hinder the normal operation of Tencent‘s MyApp and redirect traffic to vivo’s app store instead.

MyApp is a mobile smartphone acquisition platform built specially by Tencent for smartphone users. On April 15, 2021, Tencent Platform and Content Group (PCG) announced a new round of organizational structure and personnel adjustment. Under Tencent PCG, the Online Video Business Unit was established in order to integrate Tencent Video, Wesee and MyApp, and continued to develop the platform’s video capabilities.

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With the rapid development of the Internet industry, various applications have emerged one after another. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, by the end of 2020, the number of apps monitored in China’s market was 3.45 million. It is precisely because the application market is an integral “first traffic entrance” for new apps that third-party app stores and smartphones manufacturers’ own app stores need to compete with each other.