China's No. 1 anti-virus software company has teamed up with the country's biggest online auction Website to provide about 40 million online traders a more reliable and secure platform, the companies said yesterday.

Beijing Rising and Taobao.com said they have completed their technology connection for the first phase. Rising and Taobao have launched a new quick response channel to deal with viruses and online threats that allows both parties to share information with each other whenever a new virus, malware or phishing incident occurs, Rising said in a statement.

Taobao's users can download and use Rising's 2008 beta anti-virus software for free for three months. Taobao's Wangwang accounts have been listed as a key target to receive protection from Rising's "Account Number Safe," a special tool to prevent Trojans from stealing online passwords.

Both partners declined to reveal the financial details of the cooperation.

"The dot-com firms related to trade and online finance services in China urgently need to strengthen information security as they have a huge and sensitive data of clients," said Charlie Fu, PWC's Shanghai-based partner of system and process assurance.

China's online shopping revenue reached 12.2 billion yuan (US$1.65 billion) in the second quarter, a 13.2-percent growth from the previous quarter. Taobao enlarged its market share in online auctions to 78.7 percent from 72.2 percent in the quarter, according to iResearch, a Shanghai-based IT consulting firm.

The deal will help Rising to enlarge its market share in China, industry insiders said.

Rising aims to differentiate itself from rivals through new services to capture a bigger market share in the growing Chinese Internet security industry which is estimated to be worth 1.2 billion yuan in 2007.

Rising has cooperated with 70 game firms, 30 brokers, banks and popular instant message service providers, including Guotai Jun'an Securities, GF Securities, China Merchant Bank, MSN and QQ, according to the company.

In July, Rising's market share in China by user coverage was 36.7 percent, followed by Kaspersky's 33.3 percent and Qihoo Safe360's 31.9 percent, according to iResearch.

(Shanghai Daily November 30, 2007)