Yidao, the Chinese ride hailing service backed by tech giant Baidu, has complained about the alleged blocking of its service on the messaging platform WeChat, a company operated by Tencent, which is widely considered as Baidu's rival.

To make its concerns be known to the public, Yidao founder Hang Zhou wrote an open letter to Tencent chief executive officer Pony Ma on Weibo. Zhou accused the Tencent CEO of intentionally blocking Yidao's services on the social media platform due to competitive reasons.

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It is important to note that Tencent operates Didi Chuxing, China's most popular ride hailing service and a direct competitor of Yidao.

According to Tech Node, users complained about not being able to access the Yidao app on WeChat since July 13. Hours after Zhou posted his open letter, the blockade on Yidao was temporarily lifted only to be reestablished again the following day.

In a statement, Zhou said "I just do not understand why WeChat blocked the application. Moreover, Uber and SHenzhuo type apps have also been blocked, Didi is the only exception."

As a response to Zhou's open letter, Tencent released a statement decrying Yidao for sharing promotional material on its service in return for cash rewards. Tencent added that Yidao's practice was the reason why its service was blocked.

According to All China Tech, Uber China protested about the same kind of treatment on WeChat in December 2015.

TagsWeChat, WeChat news, WeChat reports, WeChat taxi service, wechat update, Tencent, Yidao, Yidao news, Yidao update