Just last week I was sharing my thoughts with you about the China market - specifically that while it Ctrip that dominates travel sales in China it is arguable that Qunar is the biggest travel site if you measure by online traffic and share of voice.
In a (clearly) unrelated move, news out today that Ctrip is suing Qunar. In a story that looks like the recent battles between RyanAir and the meta-search players, the fight is over Ctrip's allegation that Qunar is screen scraping Ctrip and that such a thing is illegal.
The compensation being sort - a paltry RMB 1,000 ($146) according to the media reports.
Very few details out their in Web land about this legal action. My guess is (with no knowledge of the Chinese legal market) is that RMB 1,000 is the nominal damages amount in Chinese courts. Really what Ctrip is looking for is an injunction to stop Qunar from scraping to either force Qunar pay for access or to hurt the Qunar business and shut down a competitor.
Thanks to Martin from Wego who was first to send me the story (Siew Hoon at Transit Cafe was just seconds behind Martin)
3 comments:
1000RMB is nothing in China, as well as in legal market. As you said ctrip is just passing a warning to qunar.
en.stilltravel.cn
will be interesting to see this play out, and have china's legal system determine where to draw the line, if at all, on search.
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