SearchEngineLand >> Reports have been coming in that people trying to reach Google, Yahoo and Microsoft from within China or via Chinese ISPs are being redirected to Baidu.
Some have accused Baidu of hijacking the traffic, but we think it’s likely that China is upset with the US over the award it granted to the Dalai Lama and is retaliating by hurting US-based search engines.
Back in 2002, when China was upset with Google, it similarly redirected traffic. From a Reuters article at that time:
Some users in Beijing and Shanghai were redirected to Peking University’s no-frills search site Tianwang, the little known cj888.com and the German-invested Baidu.com, among others. Users in Guangzhou were rerouted to the local portal 21cn.com.
Information Industry and Internet officials had no comment on the move. Sites gaining exposure from it denied any role in the reroutings. “It is definitely not done by us,” said a Baidu official. “We have no idea where it comes from.” (more…)
From Ars Technica: “As many readers who follow the antics of the Chinese government know, when it comes to enforcing the “Great Firewall of China,” consistency isn’t exactly its strong point. While certain phrases, concepts, and entire web sites are regularly blocked from reaching the eyeballs of many Chinese Internet surfers, things like high traffic are enough to let a number of forbidden concepts slip through. And then there’s the indecision of China’s Public Security Bureau (PSB), which has blocked certain sites (such as Blogspot and Wordpress blogs) on and off for some time now, and enforces the blocks inconsistently between provinces. For a One True China, there are certainly many interpretations of what is and isn’t allowed through the country’s cyber connection.
Savvy Internet fans in the people’s republic have known for a long time, however, that there have been simple ways to get forbidden information. One of those ways was the magical gift of Real Simple Syndication, or RSS. The Great Firewall can block specific web sites all it wants, but as long as there’s an RSS feed, many Chinese surfers can use feeds to access otherwise forbidden information.
Unfortunately, China appears to have finally gotten wise to RSS as of late—reports have been popping up from our readers and around the web of not being able to access FeedBurner RSS feeds as early as August of this year. More recent reports tell us that the PSB appears to have extended this block to all incoming URLs that begin with “feeds,” “rss,” and “blog,” thus rendering the RSS feeds from many sites—including ones that aren’t blocked in China, such as Ars Technica—useless. (more…)
The Financial Times is reporting the following:
“The Chinese military hacked into a Pentagon computer network in June in the most successful cyber attack on the US defence department, say American officials.
The Pentagon acknowledged shutting down part of a computer system serving the office of Robert Gates, defence secretary, but declined to say who it believed was behind the attack.
Current and former officials have told the Financial Times an internal investigation has revealed that the incursion came from the People’s Liberation Army….”
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Google revealed on Monday that it had acquired a stake in Chinese community Web site Tianya.cn, indicating a foray by the global search leader into social networking in the world’s second-largest Internet market. A Google spokeswoman confirmed the stake holding by email, but declined to give further details.
Various local media reports on Monday put the estimated size of Google’s stake at anywhere from less than 10 percent to up to 60 percent. Other media reports have said Google may be eyeing acquisitions in China.
Google is rushing to close the gap with rival Baidu.com Inc, which dominated the search market in China in the second quarter with a 58.1 percent share, according to research firm Analysys International.
