NSFW: Google, not Baidu, getting punished for China porn searches
The Chinese government has disabled some search functions in Google’s China search service today, accusing the company of not providing adequate safeguards against searches for pornography. But a source in China also pointed us to a search for porn on search engine Baidu — Google’s larger search competitor in China. The search reveals the screenshot above (the uncensored, not-safe-for-work version is viewable here). Pretty strong safeguards, huh?
Meanwhile, the government has shut off Google’s associative-word dropdown menu feature. So perhaps this is a case of the government playing favorites with a local tech company over a foreign rival — but maybe it’s more simple than that. As our source points out: “Baidu, after being burned by CCTV [China state television] last fall, paid CCTV 40m rmb in ’sponsorship fees.’”
Baidu and CCTV haven’t always gotten along. From China Digital Times:
In Nov. 2008, CCTV exposed a series of reports on Baidu’s ranking bid scandal. Baidu’s share price dropped significantly afterward, and the company has become a target of heavy moral criticism since then. However, it seems that Baidu soon after started to try to please CCTV. Its CEO, Robin Li, appeared frequently on CCTV’s Spring Festival Evening broadcast. Its soft advertisements also appeared throughout the program.
Perhaps the lesson here is that Google needs to start doing more state media sponsorships in China?
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About the Author, Eric Eldon
Eric currently covers digital media technology and business news, especially what's happening on social networks and their platforms. He also writes and edits stories about venture capital, and lots of other stuff, too. He started at VentureBeat in the spring of 2007, half a year or so after Matt Marshall left his reporting job at the San Jose Mercury News to found the site. Eric previously cofounded a startup called Writewith, that was building editorial software for newspapers and other groups of writers. The startup didn't work out, but he learned a lot.