An odd story from the Shanghai Morning Post, via Pacific Epoch:

Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Chinese domain name registrar HiChina (www.net.cn) have been sued by a Hangzhou lawyer surnamed Guo for the publication of personal email content, reports Shanghai Morning Post. Guo sued for one million Yuan in emotional damages and 1,000 Yuan in economic damages after discovering content of his personal email sent through HiChina was fully searchable in Baidu in August 2006. Guo claims the companies waited a month to respond to his complaints and delete the email links. The Beijing Haidian District People’s Court will begin hearing the case on December 7.

According to this blog post, the case was originally heard in Hangzhou in March. Apparently Mr. Guo had emailed someone in a company that had recently started using HiChina’s hosted email service. A friend told him a few months later that the email he sent could be found on Baidu with the search terms “guo li” (his full name).

I’m not sure if HiChina inadvertently allowed Baidu to search and index the recipient of Mr. Guo’s email as web content or if HiChina provides Baidu search capability for its email and had a gaping hole in its access control. If Mr. Guo is correct in his accusation that they took a month to sort out the problem, it doesn’t inspire confidence in their customer service or their respect for their customer’s privacy.

I couldn’t find any privacy policies on HiChina’s site and China has yet to implement a planned privacy law. I have no idea what grounds the suit is based on. It is said to be the first email privacy lawsuit in China. I assume that the reason the case is being heard in Beijing rather than Hangzhou is because that’s where HiChina is headquartered.

Anyways, RMB1 million (about US$135,000) is a tidy sum. I only wonder if there was anything in Mr. Guo’s email worth reading.

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