Rumor: Taobao Ads Appear in Sogou Pinyin IME

Ebrun.com, 8/13/10

Taobao sellers reported today that the new version of Sohu's (Nasdaq: SOHU) Sogou Chinese Pinyin input method editor (IME) contains advertisements for certain sellers on the B2C e-commerce website.

Trying the new IME revealed that inputting certain keywords would cause advertisements for Taobao vendors to display to the right of the input area, whereas the older version did not display Taobao ads. When inputting the name of a category or product available through Taobao, the IME will display vendor information, whereas when the keywords entered are not products available on Taobao, no ad is displayed.

So far, Sogou has not made any public statement as to whether or not it has embedded Taobao data in the Sogou IME. The installer for the new version of the IME displays no indication of having embedded Taobao data, and Sogou has not notified users of the old version that an upgrade is available.

Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Sohu, Alibaba to Establish Search JV" MD 8/09/10 issue.

Keywords: online advertising Taobao Internet Sogou Pinyin Sohu Chinese character input online search

Feedback

Sending

Disclaimer

The information contained in this newsletter is based upon sources that Marbridge Consulting believes to be reliable, and we have made every effort to translate the original articles or article excerpts as faithfully as possible. However, Marbridge Consulting makes no warranty of and assumes no legal responsibility for the accuracy of either the original source material or the English language translations.

Marbridge Daily