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Google Admits to Using Sohu Database

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the cut-and-paste dept.

prostoalex writes "A few days ago a Chinese company, Sohu.com, alleged Google improperly tapped its database for its Pinyin IME product, stirring controversy on whether two databases were similar just due to normal research process. Today Google admitted that its new product for Chinese market 'was built leveraging some non-Google database resources.' 'The dictionaries used with both software from Google and Sohu shared several common mistakes, where Chinese characters were matched with the wrong Pinyin equivalents. In addition, both dictionaries listed the names of engineers who had developed Sohu's Sogou Pinyin IME.'"

10 of 209 comments (clear)

  1. Dictionary mistakes. by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    > Today Google admitted that its new product for Chinese market 'was built leveraging some non-Google database resources.' The dictionaries used with both software from Google and Sohu shared several common mistakes, where Chinese characters were matched with the wrong Pinyin equivalents.

    ...including the ones for "plagiarize", "research", and apparently a new one for the 2000s under "leverage".

    Leverage! Leverage!
    Let no one else's work cut short your edge,
    Against the truth you can surely hedge,
    So don't cut short your edge,
    But leverage, leverage, leverage!

    (One man deserves the credit! One man deserves the blame!
    And Sergei Brin Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name!)

  2. Google's initial explanation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "In the future, Google invents a time machine that's used by a rogue employee to travel back in time to give Sohu this database. It's clear then that Sohu stole our database."

  3. Turnitin.com Subscription Coming by slashbob22 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I guess Google Labs will have to subscribe to Turnitin.com now.

    --
    Proof by very large bribes. QED.
  4. Cmon Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    surely after helping so many students copy their research papers you should know the number 1 rule of copying another persons work: Change the F*CKING NAME!

  5. Time for a slogan change? by GFree · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Do no evil"

    should be changed to

    "Do just a tiny bit of evil"

    which at this rate will probably end up as

    "All your web are belong to us"

  6. Car stereo by DogDude · · Score: 3, Funny

    So then, did the guy who stole my car stereo, was he "leveraging some non-car thief assets"?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  7. Ironic by smackt4rd · · Score: 5, Funny

    So now american companies are pirating chinese software? Oh the irony! :)

  8. Shame! by BluBall · · Score: 3, Funny

    Following the protocols established by the recent OpenBSD/Linux Broadcom driver fiasco, the proper response would be to denounce Sohu for having been ripped off by Google.

    Shame on you Sohu! This is inhuman!

  9. Oblig futurama quote by pedantic+bore · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The internet is about the free exchange of other people's ideas!"

    --
    Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
  10. Re:Is this... by jstomel · · Score: 3, Funny

    Chinks are chinese, gooks are vietnamese. People need to learn to keep their racial slurs straight or soon we won't be able to tell who anybody hates, and that would be terrible!