Taobao.com, a domestic leading personal transaction internet platform, launched a vote directed at the free transaction of virtual goods last night, inviting users to express their attitudes on the issue of the transaction rights of virtual goods.

Recently, Tencent, an operator of the leading internet community in China, has launched a lawsuit against Taobao because of the transaction of QQ numbers and QQ currencies. (QQ is Tencent's instant messaging service platform) Tencent claimed that such transaction infringes its property rights and involves unfair competition.

Taobao launched the vote at 6:30 pm last night and notified users to join the vote through "Taobao Wangwang", a kind of software provided to Taobao members for personal transaction communications. The vote was mainly in regards to whom the transaction properties of virtual goods belong to, the operator or the user himself. The vote is initially predicted to end on February 28. A spokesman of Taobao said that the vote aims to gauge users'attitudes and they would like to let users themselves decide on the issue.

Analysts say that the majority of users would be inclined to choose what is beneficial to them: transaction rights should belong to users themselves. It is not difficult to predict the vote results. Until 10:40 am this morning, altogether over 60,000 Taobao users have voted, of which 68% supported the opinion that transaction rights should belong to users.

A spokesman of Taobao denied that Taobao attempted to affect the current lawsuit through voting, saying that Taobao will respect the result of the lawsuit. In fact, legal professionals who have commented on the case are not optimistic that Tencent will finally win the lawsuit, as there is gap in relevant laws in China in regards to virtual goods.

A spokesman of Tencent, however, responded that Tencent has no comments on the issue, as Tencent is not clear about the motives of Taobao in launching such a vote.

"We think there should be a prerequisite for such a vote. Only abiding by China's basic laws and regulations is such a vote meaningful," said the spokesman, claiming that the foremost thing is to determine whether the source of virtual goods is legal.

Previously, Taobao has already brought a lawsuit to Hangzhou Westlake District People's Court, requiring the court to confirm that Taobao's action is not an infringement. Tencent also sued to Shenzhen Nanshan District People's Court against Taobao and a seller of QQ numbers claiming RMB 500,000 in damages. Sources say that as these two lawsuits are quite similar, the two courts are undergoing consultations, intending to bring a trial in one proceeding.