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Microsoft Says Bing is Restored in China (venturebeat.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the stranger-things dept.

Roughly a day after users in China began complaining that they were unable to access Bing, stoking fear that perhaps Microsoft's search engine is joining the long list of services that will not be permitted by the local government, Microsoft says it has fixed the situation. From a report: Bing is accessible in China again. In a statement, a Microsoft spokesperson said, "We can confirm that Bing was inaccessible in China, but service is now restored." Microsoft did not offer an explanation for Bing's outage, but in a televised interview with Fox News at the World Economic Forum, company president Brad Smith addressed the matter. He noted that this is not the first time Bing has faced an outage in China. "It happens periodically."

He added, "You know, we operate in China pursuant to some global principles that's called the Global Network Initiative in terms of how we manage censorship demands and the like. There are times when there are disagreements, there are times when there are difficult negotiations with the Chinese government, and we're still waiting to find out what this situation is about."

21 comments

  1. All good things eventually end... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And a huge middle finger to Microsoft.

    1. Re:All good things eventually end... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An old tired sentiment, I'm sure. Microsoft, for the most part, has long pulled in its horns. The bunch that concern me are over at 600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View and 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park gobbling up data of almost every type, and trying to establish a monopoly on search and thought (and all that that implies). 'And before you scream Windows 10, most of the data gathering it does can be turned off, if one bothers to bother.

      But Google and Facebook. They have their little scripts on half the websites out there, and track track track. They've even approached the bank systems to try to get people's banking information. They just want to know everything. But hey, you want to give Microsoft the finger. Wow.

  2. Simple enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Had to add a little more stealth tracking so the government will be able to quickly find and murder any dissidents or malcontents

    Thanks, Microsoft (bows)

    1. Re:Simple enough by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I know China has the world's biggest market for these things, but I certainly blame companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple et al for being willing to operate in China. Reminds me of IBM willing to deal w/ the Nazis during World War II

      And outside China, they are only too happy to go along w/ censorship demands of the EU or other regimes worldwide, and in the US, where there are no demands from the government, they are only to happy to go along w/ SJWs, and allow the harassment of people like the Covington school kids by celebrities and journalists

      I'm rooting for a new generation of companies to come up and put the above 'tech' companies out of business. Gone are the days when they'd come up w/ good things, be it Windows 7, Android (which is fine by now, doesn't need AI to spy on us). Now it's just 'services' used to spy on us

  3. Darth Li says to Nadella... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    "I have altered the deal. Pray I do not alter it further."

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Darth Li says to Nadella... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you a four year old?

  4. All it took was a blowjob and a few blocked URLs by Seven+Spirals · · Score: 0

    It's easy in China!

  5. No surprise. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bing sounds like a Chinese name.

    Wasn't the guy behind it named Wang Bing?

  6. Phew! by pi_rules · · Score: 2

    I'm sure that's a huge relief for both users.

    1. Re:Phew! by Sprite_tm · · Score: 1

      FWIW, Bing is actually used more than you think in China. Not because it's good, but because domestic solutions (Baidu) are crap for anything not in Mandarin, and all the other search engines (Google, Yahoo, Duckduckgo, ...) are blocked.

    2. Re: Phew! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, some asshole made the same joke yesterday. Trolls rarely demonstrate original thinking. Actually, Bing has a large following among the expat community and natives with high-level English.

    3. Re:Phew! by unixisc · · Score: 1

      Google is blocked? Despite the fact that they are only too happy to work w/ Chinese universities, which are all Government controlled, on AI projects, even while SJWs within the company protested at their participation in Project Maven? Seriously, that company ought to be sent over to Beijing, along w/ all their SJW employees

  7. They probably repurposed EU Office365 servers... by ffkom · · Score: 1

    ... to make this possible: Microsoft Office365 outage hits users across Europe.

  8. Upgrades Complete by lionchild · · Score: 1

    Great Firewall Upgrades have now been completed, we can restore services once more. ;-)

    --
    Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
  9. Spin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "You know, we operate in China pursuant to some global principles that's called the Global Network Initiative in terms of how we manage censorship demands and the like."

    Got to love the spin. The GNI is precisely about preventing authoritarian censorship. Among its members are Facebook, Google, and of course Microsoft. So, yea, we can obviously see they're in good company.

  10. Fun fact: one of the tones of the word Bing by melted · · Score: 1

    Fun fact: one of the tones of the word Bing means "disease" in Chinese. Proof: https://translate.google.com/#...

  11. "Global Network Initiative" by aberglas · · Score: 1

    A nice euphansim.

  12. Bing fully restored in China? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The tribes of Ming, Ling, and Xiao-ping are dressed for Battle Royale, but without the war paint on their faces. Death to the House of Bing! as they unfurled their banners, and drew their swords

  13. Bribes paid, they forgot to pay this month.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everything back to normal, just like cable if you don't pay you get cut.

  14. And that one user was relieved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And his name is Ricochet Rabbit.

  15. Re: They probably repurposed EU Office365 servers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Companies could have been smarter and decided to not use that Cloud based ms garbage shitfest that is office356