Baidu Examines Legality of Qihoo 360 Search Aggregator
The Beijing News, 8/23/12
Chinese internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) said on August 22 that it was consulting legal professionals to see whether or not Chinese online software developer Qihoo 360's (NYSE: QIHU) new search aggregator violates any laws.
Qihoo's search aggregator (http://so.360.cn) currently offers results from other search engines. A menu on top of the search field allows users to search webpages and videos (both using Qihoo's platform), news, MP3s, maps, or Q&A entries (all using Baidu's platform), images (using People's Daily search engine Jike), microblog postings (using Chinese internet company Sina's (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo.com), or e-commerce listings (using Taobao). At launch, the site featured a drop-down menu, now gone, allowing users to select between Baidu and Google.
According to figures from Chinese Internet firm Sohu's (Nasdaq: SOHU) Sogou search engine, more than 38% of search queries return the same result on Qihoo 360's aggretator as on Baidu's search engine - far higher than is the case with Google or Sogou.
The day after Qihoo 360 launched its search aggregator, Sogou announced a survey showing that the aggregator performed well for searches on popular queries, matching Baidu's and Sogou's performance and appreciably better than Google and Tencent's (0700.HK) Soso. The aggregator performed less well on "long-tail" queries, visibly trailing Baidu, Sogou, and Google.
The same day, Baidu unveiled a "Search Security Alliance," announcing that it would join with security companies to form an alliance against phishing, online fraud, and illegal websites.
Editor's Note: For more information on this topic, please see "Qihoo 360 Launches Online Search Aggregator," MD 8/16/12 and "Baidu Knows Blocks Qihoo 360 Search Result Links," MD 8/22/12 issues.
Keywords: litigation Internet aggregator online search Baidu legal BIDU Qihoo 360 QIHU
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