Results tagged “lawsuits”

Some woman in Southern California was so upset by Miley Cyrus' “chink-eye” pose that she decided to file a class action suit... for $4 billion. Because that's the number of Asian Pacific Islanders who live in L.A. County (a little more than 1 million) times the minimum damages for a civil rights violation ($4000 USD - about 27,340 yuan).

Chinese search engine Baidu just can't seem to stay out of the news. Pacific Epoch thinks that Baidu is finally living up to the formerly tongue-in-cheek moniker of "Google of China," while fool.com likens the growth of the company to a "runaway freight train." Certainly, there are plenty of reasons behind its phenomenal growth: for one, it copies most of the neat functions and applications that Google has—including a rumored instant messaging application. Called "Baidu Xiaosheng (百度小声)", no one actually knows if this thing exists or is just another fake cardboard steamed bun. The picture that you see came from a website where you could supposedly download the beta version, but the install file link no longer works. The Baidu public relations say that this so-called "leak" is a hoax, though there are those that believe that Baidu will eventually want to take on Tencent and other internet giants, meaning that an IM client and an email service are just a matter of time. What does seem to be closer to an undisputed fact is that Baidu is the fastest search engine in China according to a report from webpronews.com that measured and compared response times of various search engine websites.

In a report just released an hour ago, Reuters tells us that Shanghai housing rights activist, Chen Xiaoming, who was one of seven Chinese activists awarded the 2006 Housing Rights Defender Award by the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions, "has died hours after he was released on medical parole".

Image of algae in pond by Wandering in China.

Today is one of those days where count our blessings that we are not rich and powerful and have never once (OK, once) been called a "tycoon." If those words describe you (and you are Chinese and corrupt and/or friendly with the corrupt) then you may not be free to breath in Shanghai's fresh sea air much longer. Just ask Zhou Zhengyi (also known as Chau Ching-ngai), who in 2002 was called China's 11th richest man with a fortune estimated at US$320 million. He was released from prison in May after serving a three-year sentence for fraud and securities manipulation, then detained again in October and formerly arrested yesterday on charges of bribery and using phony tax receipts. Someone needs to update his Wikipedia page.

The story goes on to reveal that Baidu has a network of "200 different distributors who in turn farm out the others" to sell keywords for search advertising:

Colonel Sanders has found his conscience: after being threatened by lawsuits in the US, Kentucky Fried Chicken announced that come April of next year, all of its restaurants in the US will cease using oils containing the harmful trans-fats that have been linked to heart disease.

Shanghaiist mentioned China's first blogger versus blogger lawsuit several weeks ago, and since then, the case has been pending and we haven't heard much about it until just now. To refresh your memory, Shen Yang accused blogger Qin Chen (real name Zhang Ming) of libelous, defamatory remarks about him on his blog. Zhang Ming is a recent university graduate and said that Shen Yang started it, and that people who've been trolling the blogosphere enough know that Shen Yang is an arrogant asshole who deserved whatever criticism he received. When the case first started Shen Yang wanted 100,000 RMB and 30 days of public apologies, but according to this report (in Chinese), Shen Yang did win the case, but all he got was 1,010 yuan for public notarizing fees and an apology that Zhang Ming must put on his blog.