A transcript of the verdict by the Beijing Haidian District Court was not immediately available, but Sina carried a story on its website indicating the court found no evidence to support the claim of the plaintiff, Lai Yunpeng.

The court also required Lai to pay Sina's legal fees for the case, the website article indicated.

Sina said the adjustment of the email service was within the contract terms it has provided to applicants for the service and that free email users had ample warning that fees would soon be imposed.

Lai, a lawyer from Tianjin, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Lai filed the suit against Sina.com in September, alleging that the email service provider violated the Chinese Contract Law by scaling down the storage capacity of its free email service from 50 megabytes to 5 megabytes.

Lai said his acceptance of Sina.com's terms of service before setting up his email account constituted the equivalent of signed contract. When Sina reduced inbox capacity, he said, it breached that contract.

Tang Weijian, a law professor from Beijing's Renmin University of China, agreed with the verdict.

"The relationship between Sina.com and its email box users is not really based on an agreement specified in the Law of Contract," Tang said.

"The website's email service is not based on such terms under which the users should pay some consideration in return, so a contract is not formed. Sina.com's adjustment is apparently legitimate."

(China Daily November 16, 2001)