Baidu under more pressure…
We recently blogged about the rivalry between Baidu and Google in their quest to take over the massive Chinese online search market.
It appears this rivalry has taken another quite interesting turn. Largely down to the Chinese government putting some pressure on homegrown music services, to clean up their act… and link to licensed MP3 files only. This of course includes Baidu which currently deep links to unlicensed MP3 files.
This is seen by many observers as Baidu’s main vulnerability, and without this depth of MP3 files in it’s network… Baidu may not survive Google’s more legitimate approach. According to The Register:
Our investigation discovered how Baidu “deep links” to unlicensed MP3 files, more than half of which are on a network of closely-related domains, which are unreachable outside Baidu. Domains are rotated, ensuring the MP3s are always available. By effectively running a Pirate Bay beside its main search engine, Baidu has managed to keep Google in a distant second place.
Interestingly, Google launched it’s own free and legal Chinese music service in March 09.
Will this move by the Chinese Ministry of Culture prove to be Baidu’s undoing? Will the last bastion standing in Google’s way fall? If so … it could be as early as 2010…
