Tencent’s action against TikTok sibling app Douyin and Snapchat-like social app Duoshan will be re-heard at Tianjin Binhai New Area People’s Court on August 16, according to an announcement from the court. Douyin and Duoshan are both developed by Chinese tech giant ByteDance, with the latter incorporated into Douyin in 2021. In 2019, Douyin provided users’ account information, including their profile photos and nicknames on Tencent’s social apps WeChat and QQ, to Duoshan without Tencent’s authorization. Tencent had previously authorized users to use their WeChat accounts to register for Douyin, but not for Duoshan, according to a Tencent statement made at the time of the original complaint. Duoshan has argued that user data belongs to users regardless of the platforms that they register for. In February 2019, Tencent filed a lawsuit against Douyin and Duoshan for unfair competition and applied for an injunction from the court, demanding that Duoshan and Douyin immediately stop using users’ profiles and nicknames obtained from WeChat and QQ. The case was heard in court on June 24 of the same year, but neither of the companies provided further updates. [Jiemian, in Chinese]
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