Baidu and an e-mail service provider have been sued for making a private e-mail publicly available through Baidu search service, being asked to make apologies in public.

A man named Guo LI accidentally discovered in mid-August of 2006 that a private e-mail of his sent a month ago was publicly available through the search service of Baidu.com. Moreover, the full text of the enclosure of the mail could be read using "Baidu Snapshot".

Guo immediately got in touch with Baidu and the e-mail service provider, asking them to delete the relevant links and content. A few days later, the e-mail service provider explained that it is because the e-mail server cache of the company was illegally searched by Baidu's search procedure that Guo's e-mail was linked to Baidu's search engine and thus was publicly available by means of search.

After several rounds of negotiations, this issue was solved. Guo said that all citizens' communications privacy through e-mail service is protected by laws, but the e-mail service provider has not ensured the security of his e-mail and Baidu illegally provided links to his e-mail on the Internet.

Guo stated that it is the e-mail service provider and Baidu's illegal actions that eventually led to his e-mail, which contains personal privacy, being publicly available on the Internet. Therefore, he brought a lawsuit to the People's Court in Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, claiming open apologies with an apology statement published on the front page of the two companies' websites for 30 days.

At present, the People's Court in Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City has accepted the case. 

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