A Tianjin lawyer has lost a three-month, precedent-setting court case against Internet portal Sina.com for shrinking the capacity of his free e-mail box from 50 megabytes to five.
Late last month, the Beijing Haidian district court ruled against Lai Yunpeng, but the lawyer said he thought another judge might agree with him later.
Mr Lai sued in September because he felt it was unfair that Sina.com, one of China's three biggest Internet portals, could shrink the mailbox after promising it would be 50 MB.
He sued for breach of contract on September 16.
'If you promise, you can't just change. This is a simple case, a common problem. I didn't expect this outcome,' said Mr Lai, who has been a lawyer for two years.
Sina lawyer Xie Guoming said the court had said the free service did not constitute a contract.
However, he said Mr Lai reached his goal of raising his law firm's profile, sometimes by bringing journalists to court to boost his case.