(Shanghai Daily By Ding Yining | August 8, 2014) INTERNET security service provider Qihoo 360 was ordered to pay 700,000 yuan (US$113,506) to Baidu for breaking the industry rules on online search.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court found Qihoo involved in unfair competition as it took content from Baidu’s website, ignoring the Robots protocols, a widely accepted industry rule on online search.

The court found that Qihoo took Baidu’s content without the latter’s consent through its 360 Browser and search engine in August 2012.

Baidu sued Qihoo for unfair competition and initially demanded 100 million yuan as compensation. It demanded that Qihoo stop taking information from its website and online discussion forums.

The court heard the case in October last year.

Qihoo and Baidu have been involved in a number of conflicts as the companies battle it out for a share of the online search market.

The Robots protocols specify what kind of content can be accessed by external search engine sites.

Qihoo, a popular Internet security agency in China, claimed that Baidu was defaming its business operations through various media and filed a lawsuit in Beijing. The court has yet to pass a verdict in this case.

Earlier this year, the Supreme People’s Court ordered Qihoo to pay 5 million yuan in damages to rival Tencent for unfair competition.

Tencent claimed it suffered economic losses after Qihoo blocked users from installing Tencent’s related services, denying web users from viewing and subscribing to its value-added services. The lawsuit was regarded as the most important anti-monopoly spat between the two Internet giants.