A popular Chinese networking site is suing for 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) in compensation after a competitor used what it said was a similar name to steal and mislead users.

The prosecutor of the case-Kaixin001.com. [Photo: diggsoft.com]

The defendant of the case-Kaixin.com. [Photo: diggsoft.com]

Kaixin001.com, a social networking site operated by the Beijing-based Kaixinren company, was launched in March last year and has become popular with white-collar workers for its games and other features.

Meanwhile Qianxiang company, which is also based in Beijing, purchased the domain name Kaixin.com in October last year. Its social networking site has also soared in the Alexa rankings, a widely-accepted system based on website traffic.

Now, the owners of Kaixin001.com want Qianxiang to stop using Kaixin - which means "happy" in Chinese - and to pay 10 million yuan in compensation for lost advertising revenue, the Jinghua Times reported.

Li Qing, the chief of the Qianxian public relations department, quoted a survey released by the Baidu website on Wednesday that showed nearly 40,000 people were using Kaixin.com every day.

The survey showed Kaixin001 had nearly 15,000 daily users.

"A domain name is just the door of a social networking site. People keep revisiting our website because it has a good reputation for games," Xu Chaojun, vice-president of Qianxiang company, told China Daily.

(China Daily May 22, 2009)