Microsoft Bing joins hands with Baidu for English-language search in China
Google dramatically pulled out of China a while back, and though it is still accessible in the mainland through Hong Kong servers, search and email services have reportedly been elusively hard to connect to in recent times. Chinese search engine, Baidu continues to run the show in the meanwhile. Currently holding more than 80% of the Chinese search engine share, Baidu admits however that it hasn’t been able to cater to the growing demand for English-language searches.
Baidu is reaching out to Microsoft for Bing to provide English-language search, and the partnership will definitely see Bing grow in the global search fight against Google, with more then 10 million English language search queries a day on Baidu presently, from the world’s largest internet population of roughly 470 million users. However, the biggest reason why Google left China in the first place still remains for Microsoft – censorship of results courtesy the Chinese government.
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How much this will be a problem for the biggest corporation is evident in the fact the deal has been signed, and Microsoft is espousing a philosophy of jurisdictional diplomacy. A company spokesperson commented on the deal: “Microsoft respects and follows laws and regulations in every country where we run business. We operate in China in a manner that both respects local authority and culture and makes clear that we have differences of opinion with official content management policies.”
While the deal’s been inked, the Baidu-Bing partnership is expected to go online by the end of this year, appearing on Baidu search pages. Google’s apparently not worried about losing China completely however, stressing the value of the profitable world of online advertising in China, an area it is focussing on instead.