Douyin sues Tencent over alleged monopolistic behavior

A view of a livestreaming studio set up by Douyin during an exhibition in Fuzhou, Fujian province, on Sept 5. [Photo/China Daily]

Douyin, a Chinese short video app boasting 600 million daily active users, sued Tencent Holdings Ltd on Tuesday over alleged monopolistic behavior on its social networking platforms.

The short video app is seeking 90 million yuan ($14 million) in compensation for what it claimed as Tencent violating Chinese antitrust laws by blocking access to content from Douyin on WeChat and QQ, both of which are operated by Tencent.

In a lawsuit filed in Beijing, Douyin asked the court to order Tencent to cease the practice and publish a statement removing its negative impact, on top of financial compensation.

"We believe that competition is better for consumers and promotes innovation. We have filed this lawsuit to protect our rights and those of our users," Douyin said in a statement.

Tencent responded later Tuesday, saying it has not received any documents pertaining to ByteDance, the parent of Douyin, and calling such allegations "groundless and defamatory".

"We operate our products, following the principles of fair competition and open platform cooperation, to create value for users and third-party products. The allegations made by ByteDance against Tencent are groundless and defamatory," it said.

It added many of Bytedance's products, including Douyin, have sought to obtain WeChat users' personal information "via various dubious and improper means and violated our long-established policies in protecting user privacy and data security".

"The actions of ByteDance and related companies had hurt the interests of our partners in the ecosystem and the rights of our users," Tencent said. "We are committed and will take legal action to protect our healthy ecosystem.

The development came months after Beijing unveiled draft regulations aimed at rooting out monopolistic behavior among internet companies, and escalated a feud between the leading Chinese social media giants.