Qihoo 360's Security Guard designated Baidu's Tool Bar as malware and it posted negative comments on 360's website to persuade users to uninstall the tool .
Qihoo 360 has been ordered to compensate Baidu Inc 385,000 yuan (US$58,333) for unfair competition after Qihoo's security tool identified Baidu's Tool Bar and Address Bar as "malicious plug-ins."
Qihoo 360 should take responsibility as its Security Guard designated Baidu's Tool Bar as malware and its posting negative comments on 360's website to persuade users to uninstall the tool constituted unfair competition, the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court said on Monday.
Qihoo 360 argued that its security tool doesn't have any relationship with Baidu's search service.
Baidu's Tool Bar allows users access to its products by clicking an additional tool bar of the Internet browser while the Address Bar will show quicker search results after directly typing on the browser's address column.
These two tools by China's largest search engine also appeared in the trojan virus scanning results on Qihoo's anti-virus tool.
Qihoo 360 designated these two tools as "virus" and warned they "posted a security threat to users' computers."
But the Beijing court did not find any evidence to back Baidu's charges that Qihoo was manipulating users' vote results and deleting users' positive comments of the above-mentioned tool bar.
The court also rejected Baidu's demands seeking 10 million yuan in damages and 150,000 yuan for legal costs.
