Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Partners With Baidu, China's Top Search Engine
countertrolling writes with news that Microsoft has struck an agreement with Baidu.com, the most popular search engine in mainland China, to provide results for English-language queries. From the NY Times:
"Baidu, which dominates Chinese-language search services here with about 83 percent of the market, has been trying for years to improve its English-language search services because English searches on its site are as many as 10 million a day, the company said. Now it has a powerful partner. 'More and more people here are searching for English terms,' Kaiser Kuo, the company’s spokesman, said Monday. 'But Baidu hasn’t done a good job. So here’s a way for us to do it.' Baidu and Microsoft did not disclose terms of the agreement. But the new English-language search results will undoubtedly be censored, since Beijing maintains strict controls over Internet companies and requires those operating on the mainland to censor results the government deems dangerous or troublesome, including references to human rights issues and dissidents."
"Baidu Bing"... get it?
I just can't be bothered.
Come on, who else is gonna do it? Yahoo? Altavista? Google won't because they aren't exactly on good terms with China what with the censorship and the hacking. This isn't a case of MS getting into a market by leveraging its monopoly powers -- it's a case of MS getting into a market by lacking the morals found in other companies. If you're gonna bash them, at least do it for the right reason.