Microsoft and Badu Combine Forces to Expand Web Search in China
Badu Inc. and Microsoft came up with a decision to combine their forces as they seek to gain Google users. This partnership happened after Google pulled its famous search engine out of China a year and a half ago over concerns on censorship.
The agreement will allow users of Baidu to view English search results generated by Microsoft’s Bing technology. Baidu stated in an email that the two companies will offer an integrated service this year.
Badu has long been in a battle to match the English search capabilities of Google. The company is expected to introduce Bing albeit a version that will necessarily adhere to the expanding censorship rules in the country. To be sure, the search engine will be accessed by Baidu users for Chinese results. Hence, the company controls 83 percent of the local search market in the biggest Internet community of the world, with more than 470 million users.
The terms of the agreement were not revealed by the two companies. However, the new English-language search results will definitely be censored amid strict controls of the Beijing government over Internet companies. This would then require those who are operating on the mainland to censor results deemed troublesome and dangerous by the government which include dissidents and references to human rights issues.
According to Kaiser Kuo, a Baidu spokesman, building one’s own Index of English pages is not a trivial matter so there is no reason they won’t partner with someone who does it well. He added that such move is about catering to the needs of their users.
Meanwhile, a spokesman from Microsoft emphasized the respect and compliance of the company to the laws and regulations in all countries where they run business. He stressed that they operate in China in such a way that respects culture and local authority and points out the differences of opinion with official content management policies.
The partnership could be an opportunity for Microsoft. In a statement, Shen Xiangyang, senior global vice president of Microsoft, mentioned that the cooperation of Bing with Baidu will enable the vast majority of Baidu users to gain better English search results and experiences as well as allows more Chinese users to experience Bing.
Google did not comment on the partnership; however, the company says that search is not the largest opportunity in China.
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