Recently, Beijing Intellectual Property Court made a second-instance judgment on the appeal of unfair competition dispute of Tencent video operator Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Tencent Company) v. Beijing Century Xinghui Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Century Xinghui Company), and found that it is not an industry practice for browsers to filter legal advertisements on video websites.
Browsers' filtering of legitimate advertisements belongs to advertisement interception filtering, which obviously hinders the normal operation of video websites and damages the legitimate rights and interests of normal business activities of video websites. In this appeal, the court held that the Window of the World browser developed and operated by World Star blocked the advertising behavior of Tencent video.
It violates recognized business ethics, harms public interests and constitutes unfair competition. It is necessary to compensate Tencent for its economic losses and reasonable expenses 1.89 million yuan. There are different opinions in the industry on how to identify the competitive relationship between browsers and video websites and whether technology neutrality is applicable to their related behaviors.
As for the result of the second trial of the case, some experts analyzed that the behavior involved reflected the destruction of a business model, which would not only harm the interests of the obligee, but even endanger the business model of the online video industry. Therefore, it is necessary to bring the browser's shielding of legitimate advertisements of video websites into unfair competition.