Baidu sues Register

CHINESE SEARCH OUTFIT Baidu has decided to sue Register.com for breach of contract, gross negligence and recklessness related to an attack by hackers.

The Register is a domain name outfit and not the same as a El Reg which is a quaint news blog run by a bloke who I owe a pint to for getting me past security at the Networks Show.

According to Reuters a US court has allowed Baidu to sue Register.com after an attack on January 11. It stopped the world and its dog from having a look at the Baidu site for five hours and disrupted its operations for two days.

Baidu holds the greatest share of the Chinese online search market and the site was taken down by a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army, which hijacked Baidu's home page. It managed to do this by hacking into Baidu's account at Register.com. Weeks before, the same hackers did the same thing to Twitter.

Baidu said that a Register.com service representative allowed an intruder, who falsely claimed to be an agent of Baidu, access to Baidu's account even though the intruder could not provide the right security codes.

If this is true then Register.com failed to follow its own security protocols and essentially handed over control of Baidu's account to an unauthorised intruder.

Judge Denny Chin said in part. "On these facts, a jury surely could find that Register acted in a grossly negligent and reckless manner."

The ruling means that Baidu can proceed with a court case against Register.com.

Baidu didn't get everything its own way. The lawsuit made seven claims against Register.com over the security breach, but the judge dismissed five claims, including trademark infringement and aiding and abetting trespass. µ