Any Baidu users care to comment? I am not sure how Baidu is any different than Google in terms of piracy. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/28/us-usa-trade-piracy-idUSTRE71R8B820110228 U.S. calls China's Baidu "notorious market" (Reuters) - The United States on Monday again put China's top search engine, Baidu Inc, on its annual list of "notorious markets" for counterfeit and pirated goods, fueling U.S. business community hopes for action in Congress against "rogue websites." The U.S. Trade Representative's office said Baidu was the most prominent example of online services that use "deep linking" to steer buyers to "allegedly infringing materials, often stored on third-party hosting sites." Deep links take web users to a specific point within a website without first going to the website's home page. Baidu was recently ranked as the No. 1 most-visited site in China, and among the top 10 in the world, USTR said. USTR released its annual list of notorious Internet and physical markets two months earlier than usual. It said it would now publish the list separately, instead of in a larger annual report on global intellectual property theft at the end of April. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Congress needed to pass legislation giving U.S. courts new authority to block foreign websites that sell pirated or counterfeit goods from operating in the United States. "Criminals who operate these markets are stealing the best of American creativity and innovation," Steven Tepp, senior director for Internet counterfeiting and piracy at the business group, said in a statement. USTR took aim at a number of other Chinese marketplaces, both on and off the web. "Industry reports that personal computer malls throughout China, such as Hailong PC Mall in Beijing and Yangpu Yigao Digital Square in Shanghai, sell computers with illegal operating system software and other unlawfully pre-installed software," USTR said. It chided Russia for similar physical markets and websites that offer pirated music. "While the Russia-based allofmp3 (formerly the world's largest server-based pirate music website) was shut down in 2007, nearly identical sites have taken its place," USTR said. There are also notorious physical markets for counterfeit and pirated goods in Ecuador, Paraguay, Indonesia, Argentina, Hong Kong, India, Ukraine, Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, Pakistan and Colombia, USTR said.
How does it help Google? US opinion does not significantly affect Chinese policy, and Baidu is not a real competitor outside of the Chinese speaking world.
I haven't used Baidu but based on the description I really don't see how this is different than Google or most other search engines.
I wouldn't think you blame the search engine for such things. This would set a bad precedent as for who is to blame in cases like these, and what Big Brother is able to do about it.
Unless Baidu is getting paid when people on their search-engine download pirated material, I don't how you hold them responsible. Baidu isn't big outside of China (or, at least, in the West), but there's no reason that couldn't change in the future. They are a big, capable company and the internet is a world-wide marketplace. This strikes me as an anti-competitive move to guard Google's marketshare in the West.
I'm not so sure suggesting Baidu is a better source for finding pirated material is necessarily an advantage to Google .
Looks like the U.S. government is in lockstep with ChiCom waging a full frontal assault on big bad Baidu: China has unveiled a new government-run search engine that will square off against market leader Baidu.
One example would be mp3.baidu.com, which is admittedly the only time I personally use baidu given that its search engine is absolute piece of crap. If you go there, you can download just about any songs that Chinese people listen to. Baidu doesn't host these songs, but link them to sites that do. There was even a lawsuit over it, where Baidu won due to the fact that they personally don't own them. So it does generally go a step further than google. As for google itself, basically it got done in by its "holier than thou" attitude on the Chinese scene. They used the same approach to Chinese marketing that they did in the US. And nobody gave a damn. Plus they went against the Chinese government head-to-head, which was stupid because the government always wins. Basically, they screwed up in China, and now relegated to #3 on the market.
