Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Search Giant Baidu Launches International Sites
jfruh writes "Baidu, a company that offers a search engine, a Wikipedia-style user-edited encyclopedia, and other online services, is a household name in China. Now the company is seeking to gain ground on Google in the rest of the world, opening local search sites (in local languages) for Thailand, Brazil, and Egypt."
Will that be with or without censorship?
They are only a giant because their government does not allow anyone else to participate. I'm not sure how they are hoping to translate this business model to countries not ruled by paranoid kleptocracies.
While Google needs competition, I sincerely doubt a search engine under the control of Chinese censors will make any headway in the free world.
More international warez! And malware!
I don't know if this deserves to be negative - I had to do a really dumb malware removal on a POS system, and the majority of the trouble was coming from software that was branded Baidu. Here in the middle of the great plains, at a Mexican Restaraunt.
It had several hidden portions that hijacked the browser, too, not to mention popup ads. Most cleanup tools didn't work on it, either - we ended up getting down and dirty with it and removing things manually as we discovered them.
I don't really know why I mention this, apart from to say that I dislike Baidu and I'm not at all surprised at any accusation of them being malware-ridden.
Yes, US is guilty of everything you listed. We can talk about all the past and present failed US policies. We can openly criticize the policies. For those of us who live in the US, we can even openly organize to remove the politicians in questions. That is the difference between democratic nations and authoritarian countries.
Like the old saying, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." US has certainly slipped but it is still far ahead of China is terms of basic civil rights for all.
But I think I'll stick with the search engine that allows people to search for Tiananmen Square.