ByteDance is bringing its battle with archrival Tencent to the court at a time when the Chinese government moves to curve the power of the country’s internet behemoths.
The Beijing Intellectual Property Court has permitted a ByteDance lawsuit brought against Tencent to proceed, a ByteDance spokesperson confirmed with TechCrunch. Upstart new media company ByteDance alleged that Tencent’s restrictions on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, are in violation of China’s anti-monopoly draft rules. Douyin is headquartered in Beijing while Tencent’s base is in Shenzhen.
For three years, Tencent has blocked Douyin from its flagship networking apps …
