Liu Ren: pioneering new business models for the Chinese Internet

Below is a translation by Eric Mu of a story from National Business Daily that was republished on China.com.

It about Liu Ren, a senior executive at popular IT news and blogging portal Donews who has been arrested for extortion.

Liu demanded money from owners and staff of other websites, threatening to write negative stories about them on DoNews if they did not pay up.

The story is sending shock waves though the Beijing Internet community because DoNews is an influential site, and it is owned by the high profile Oak Pacific, which also owns high traffic BBS Mop, and and leading Facebook clone Xiaonei.

Some of Oak Pacific's investor's include big shot venture capital funds General Atlantic and Softbank. Lots of American money there.

In addition to his role at DoNews, Liu Ren is also a vice president at Oak Pacific.

The company that reported Liu to the police is Qihoo, a well known website where users can ask and answer questions.

Although it seems that some postings of the article are being deleted, a search for 'Liu Ren extortion' (刘韧 敲诈) currently returns about 80,000 results on Google and 10,000 on Baidu: The story has been widely republished on blogs and tech websites.

Oak Pacific Vice President Liu Ren arrested on suspicion of extortion, Qihoo senior manager confirms

Translated by Eric Mu

A senior employee of Qihoo company yesterday confirmed to the National Business Daily the rumor that the vice president of Oak Pacific Interactive and founder of DoNews, Liu Ren (刘韧), has been arrested for extortion.

Yesterday, a senior employee of Qihoo company revealed when he was receiving an interview from NBD that Liu Ren, vice president of Oak Paficific Interactive and founder of DoNews, has been extorting a "PR fee" from Qihoo. Eventually, Qihoo could not take it any more and reported him to the police. The senior employee from Qihoo also said that Liu Ren was also reported by other companies from whom he tried to extort money. The sums involved in his extortion demands are as high as ten million yuan.

According to another source, Liu had published articles attacking Qihoo on the DoNews website, and Qihoo has paid him a lot of money to stop the attacks.

"Liu Ren was involed when Qihoo had a dispute with Rising [a company that produces anti-virus software]. At that time, DoNews was rife with negative information about Qihoo" said a senior employee of Qihoo. Qihoo tried to talk with Liu Ren privately, but instead of stopping the attacks on Qihoo, DoNews became even more vicious.

"We used to enjoy a good relationship. Our websites once shared the same server," said the senior employee. "As friends, we do not want to see him in prison. What we intended to do is to teach him a lesson, but the police got serious and launched a investigation."

Yesterday, your correspondent called the police station of Xicheng district and the Xicheng jail. Neither of them confirmed the arrest. Information indicates that Liu Ren has worked for China Computer News, China Computer World, and Knowledge Economy. He is currently the vice president of Oak Pacific Interactive, producer of DoNews, partner of 5G, CSDN consultant and a member of Blue Lion, a publisher of financial books.

The NorthEast News article linked below contains police confirmation of the arrest.