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Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational
technology company A technology company (or tech company) is an electronics-based technological company, including, for example, business relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce services. Details According to ''Fo ...
specializing in Internet-related services and products and
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
(AI), headquartered in
Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
's
Haidian District Haidian District () is a district of the municipality of Beijing. It is mostly situated in northwestern Beijing, but also to a lesser extent in the west, where it has borders with Xicheng District and Fengtai District. It is 431 square km in a ...
. It is one of the largest AI and Internet companies in the world. The holding company of the group is incorporated in the
Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...
. Baidu was incorporated in January 2000 by
Robin Li Robin Li Yanhong (; born 17 November 1968) is a Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the search engine Baidu. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$8.5 billion. Li studied inform ...
and
Eric Xu Eric Xu Yong (; born 1964) is a Chinese entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He is best known as co-founder of Baidu, the largest Chinese search engine. Dr. Xu is founder and chairman of Yifang Capital, an investment holding company engag ...
. The Baidu
search engine A search engine is a software system designed to carry out web searches. They search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query. The search results are generally presented in a ...
is currently the sixth largest website in the
Alexa Internet Alexa Internet, Inc. was an American web traffic analysis company based in San Francisco. It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amazon. Alexa was founded as an independent company in 1996 and acquired by Amazon in 1999 for $250 million in stock. ...
rankings. Baidu has origins in RankDex, an earlier search engine developed by Robin Li in 1996, before he founded Baidu in 2000. Baidu offers various services, including a
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
search engine, as well as a mapping service called
Baidu Maps Baidu Maps is a desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Baidu, offering satellite imagery, street maps, street view ("Panorama" - :zh:百度全景) and indoor view perspectives, as well as functions such ...
. Baidu offers about 57 search and community services, such as
Baidu Baike Baidu Baike (; , also known as Baidu Wiki) is a semi-regulated Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu. The beta version was launched on April 20, 2006, and the official version was lau ...
(an online
encyclopedia An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...
),
Baidu Wangpan Baidu Wangpan (; translation: Baidu Web Drive) is a cloud service provided by Baidu, Inc., headquartered in Haidian District in Beijing. It offers a cloud storage service, client software, file management, resources sharing, and Third Party Int ...
(a cloud storage service), and
Baidu Tieba Baidu Tieba () is a Chinese online forum hosted by the Chinese web services company Baidu. Baidu Tieba was established on December 3, 2003 as an online community that heavily integrates Baidu's search engine. Users may search for a topic of i ...
(a keyword-based discussion forum). Baidu Global Business Unit (GBU) is responsible for Baidu's international products and services for markets outside of China. Baidu GBU's product portfolio includes keyboard apps Simeji and Facemoji Keyboard, content recommendation platform popIn, augmented reality network OmniAR, Japanese smart projector popIn Aladdin, and ad platform MediaGo, which is focused on Chinese advertisers looking to reach overseas users. In 2017, Baidu GBU entered into a partnership with
Snap Inc. Snap Inc. is an American camera and social media company, founded on September 16, 2011, by Evan Spiegel, Bobby Murphy, and Reggie Brown based in Santa Monica, California. The company developed and maintains technological products and services ...
to act as the company's official ad reseller for Snapchat in
Greater China Greater China is an informal geographical area that shares commercial and cultural ties with the Han Chinese people. The notion of "Greater China" refers to the area that usually encompasses Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan in East A ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
,
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...
. The partnership was extended in 2019. In 2018, Baidu divested the "Global DU business" portion of its overseas business, which developed a series of utility apps including ES File Explorer, DU Caller, Mobojoy, Photo Wonder and DU Recorder, etc. This business now operates independently of Baidu under the name DO Global. Baidu has the second largest search engine in the world, and held a 76.05% market share in China's search engine market. In December 2007, Baidu became the first Chinese company to be included in the
NASDAQ-100 The Nasdaq-100 (^NDX) is a stock market index made up of 101 equity securities issued by 100 of the largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. It is a modified capitalization-weighted index. The stocks' weights in the in ...
index. As of May 2018, Baidu's
market cap Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders. Market capitalization is equal to the market price per common share multiplied by t ...
rose to US$99 billion. In October 2018, Baidu became the first Chinese firm to join the United States-based computer ethics consortium
Partnership on AI Partnership on AI (full name Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society) is a nonprofit coalition committed to the responsible use of artificial intelligence. It researches best practices for artificial intelligence system ...
.


History


Early development

In 1994,
Robin Li Robin Li Yanhong (; born 17 November 1968) is a Chinese software engineer and billionaire internet entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the search engine Baidu. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$8.5 billion. Li studied inform ...
(Li Yanhong, 李彦宏) joined IDD Information Services, a
New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
division of
Dow Jones and Company Dow Jones & Company, Inc. is an American publishing firm owned by News Corp and led by CEO Almar Latour. The company publishes ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''Barron's'', ''MarketWatch'', ''Mansion Global'', ''Financial News'' and ''Private Equ ...
, where he helped develop software for the online edition of ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''. He also worked on developing better algorithms for search engines and remained at IDD Information Services from May 1994 to June 1997. In 1996, while at IDD, Li developed the RankDex site-scoring algorithm for search engines results page ranking"About: RankDex"
, ''rankdex.com''
and received a US patent for the technology. Launched in 1996, RankDex was the first search engine that used hyperlinks to measure the quality of websites it was indexing. Li referred to his search mechanism as "link analysis," which involved ranking the popularity of a web site based on how many other sites had linked to it. It predated the similar
PageRank PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. According ...
algorithm used by
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
two years later in 1998; Google founder
Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 unt ...
referenced Li's work as a citation in some of his U.S. patents for PageRank. Li later used his RankDex technology for the Baidu search engine. Baidu was incorporated on January 18, 2000, by Robin Li and Eric Xu. In 2001, Baidu allowed advertisers to bid for ad space and then pay Baidu every time a customer clicked on an ad, predating Google's approach to advertising. In 2003, Baidu launched a news search engine and picture search engine, adopting a special identification technology capable of identifying and grouping the articles. Baidu went public on Wall Street through a
variable interest entity Variable interest entity (VIE) is a term used by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to refer to a legal entity with certain characteristics such that a public company with a financial interest in the entity is subject to certain financ ...
(VIE) based in the
Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...
on August 5, 2005. On July 31, 2012, Baidu announced that it would team up with
Sina Sina may refer to: Relating to China * Chin (China), or Sina (), old Chinese form of the Sanskrit name Cina () ** Shina (word), or Sina ( ja, 支那, links=no), archaic Japanese word for China ** Sinae, Latin name for China Places * Sina, Al ...
to provide mobile search results. On November 18, 2012, Baidu announced that it would be partnering with
Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
to offer free cloud storage to Android users with
Snapdragon ''Antirrhinum'' is a genus of plants commonly known as dragon flowers, snapdragons and dog flower because of the flowers' fancied resemblance to the face of a dragon that opens and closes its mouth when laterally squeezed. They are native to r ...
processors. On August 2, 2013, Baidu launched its Personal Assistant app, designed to help CEOs, managers and the white-collar workers manage their business relationships. On May 16, 2014, Baidu appointed Dr. Andrew Ng as chief scientist. Dr. Ng will lead Baidu Research in Silicon Valley and Beijing. On July 18, 2014, the company launched a Brazilian version of the search engine, ''Baidu Busca''. On October 9, 2014, Baidu announced acquisition of Brazilian local e-commerce site Peixe Urbano. In April 2017, Baidu announced the launch of its Apollo project (Apolong), a self-driving vehicle platform, in a bid to help drive the development of
autonomous car A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
s including vehicle platform, hardware platform, open-source software platform and cloud data services. Baidu plans to launch this project in July 2017, before gradually introducing fully autonomous driving capabilities on highways and open city roads by 2020. In September 2017, Baidu launched a $1.5 billion autonomous driving fund to invest in as many as 100 autonomous driving projects over the ensuing three years. At the same time, Apollo open-source software version 1.5 was also launched. In June 2017, Baidu partnered with
Continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...
and Bosch, auto industry suppliers, on automated driving and connected cars. In September 2017, Baidu rolled out a new portable talking translator that can listen and speak in several different languages. Smaller than a typical smartphone, the 140-gram translation device can also be used as a portable Wi-Fi router and is able to operate on networks in 80 countries. It is still under development. Baidu will also be inserting artificial intelligence (AI) technology into smartphones, through its deep learning platform. At the same period, it has also led a joint investment of US$12 billion with Alibaba Group,
Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the w ...
,
JD.com JD.com, Inc., also known as Jingdong (), internationally known as Joybuy and formerly called 360buy,
and
Didi Chuxing Didi may refer to: Arts and entertainment * "Didi" (song), a song by Khaled * Didi, the principal character in ''Didi's Comedy Show'', a German comedy television show * Didi Pickles, mother of Tommy and Dil in the cartoons ''Rugrats'' and ''All ...
, acquiring 35% of
China Unicom China United Network Communications Group Co., Ltd. () or China Unicom () (CUniq in short) is a Chinese state-owned telecommunications operator. Started as a wireless paging and GSM mobile operator, it currently provides a range of services in ...
's stakes. In October 2017, according to ''The Wall Street Journal'', Baidu would launch self-driving buses in China in 2018. In the same month, Baidu announced that its first annual Baidu World technology conference (''Bring AI to Life'') would be held and live-streamed on November 16, 2017, at China World Summit Wing and Kerry Hotel, bringing together Baidu executives, employees, partners, developers, and media to discuss the company's mission and strategy, technology breakthroughs, new product developments, and its open artificial-intelligence (AI) ecosystem. In August 2021 Baidu revealed a new Robocar concept said to be capable of Level 5 autonomous driving. It also comes with the latest second-generation AI chip that can analyse the internal and external surroundings to provide predictive suggestions to proactively serve the needs of passengers.


Domain name redirection attack

On January 12, 2010, Baidu.com's DNS records in the United States were altered such that browsers to baidu.com were redirected to a website purporting to be the
Iranian Cyber Army The Iranian Cyber Army is an Iranian computer hacker group. It is thought to be connected to Iranian government, although it is not officially recognized as an entity by the government. It has pledged loyalty to Supreme Leader of Iran. According t ...
, thought to be behind the attack on
Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
during the
2009 Iranian election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests con ...
, making the proper site unusable for four hours. Internet users were met with a page saying "This site has been attacked by
Iranian Cyber Army The Iranian Cyber Army is an Iranian computer hacker group. It is thought to be connected to Iranian government, although it is not officially recognized as an entity by the government. It has pledged loyalty to Supreme Leader of Iran. According t ...
". Chinese hackers later responded by attacking Iranian websites and leaving messages. Baidu later launched legal action against
Register.com Register.com is a domain name registrar. History The company was founded in 1994 as Forman Interactive Corp by brothers Peter and Richard Forman and their brother-in-law, Dan B. Levine as a provider of website creation software. In 1999, the com ...
for gross negligence after it was revealed that Register.com's technical support staff changed the email address for Baidu.com on the request of an unnamed individual, despite failing security verification procedures. Once the address had been changed, the individual was able to use the forgotten password feature to have Baidu's domain passwords sent directly to them, allowing them to accomplish the
domain hijacking Domain hijacking or domain theft is the act of changing the registration of a domain name without the permission of its original registrant, or by abuse of privileges on domain hosting and registrar software systems. This can be devastating to ...
. The lawsuit was settled out of court under undisclosed terms after Register.com issued an apology.


Baidu workers arrested

On August 6, 2012, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
reported that three employees of Baidu were arrested on suspicion that they accepted bribes. The bribes were allegedly paid for deleting posts from the forum service. Four people were fired in connection with these arrests.


91 Wireless acquisition

On July 16, 2013, Baidu announced its intention to purchase 91 Wireless from
NetDragon NetDragon Websoft is a Chinese company that develops and operates massively multiplayer online games in addition to making mobile applications. The company debuted its first product in 2002. Some self-developed games it operates in China are base ...
. 91 Wireless is best known for its app store, but it has been reported that the app store faces privacy and other legal issues. On August 14, 2013, Baidu announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Baidu (Hong Kong) Limited has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire 91 Wireless Web-soft Limited from
NetDragon NetDragon Websoft is a Chinese company that develops and operates massively multiplayer online games in addition to making mobile applications. The company debuted its first product in 2002. Some self-developed games it operates in China are base ...
Web-soft Inc. for $1.85 billion in what was reported to be the biggest deal ever in China's IT sector.


Name

The name ''Baidu'' () literally means "a hundred times", or alternatively, "countless times". It is a quote from the last line of Xin Qiji's () classical poem "Green Jade Table in The Lantern Festival" () saying: "Having searched hundreds of times in the crowd, suddenly turning back, she is there in the dimmest candlelight." ()


Services

Baidu offers several services to locate information, products and services using Chinese-language search terms, such as, search by Chinese phonetics, advanced search, snapshots, spell checker, stock quotes, news, knows, postbar, images, video and space information, and weather, train and flight schedules and other local information. The
user-agent string In computing, the User-Agent header is an HTTP header intended to identify the user agent responsible for making a given HTTP request. Whereas the character sequence User-Agent comprises the name of the header itself, the header value that a g ...
of Baidu search engine is ''Baiduspider''. *''
Baidu Maps Baidu Maps is a desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Baidu, offering satellite imagery, street maps, street view ("Panorama" - :zh:百度全景) and indoor view perspectives, as well as functions such ...
'' () is a desktop and mobile mapping solution similar to Google Maps, but covering only the Greater China region *''
Baidu Wangpan Baidu Wangpan (; translation: Baidu Web Drive) is a cloud service provided by Baidu, Inc., headquartered in Haidian District in Beijing. It offers a cloud storage service, client software, file management, resources sharing, and Third Party Int ...
'' (), formerly ''Baidu Cloud'' () is a
cloud storage service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...
that offers 2 TB of free data storage. *Baidu started its Japanese language search service, run by Baidu Japan, the company's first regular service outside of China. It includes a
search bar A search box, search field or search bar is a graphical control element used in computer programs, such as file managers or web browsers, and on web sites. A search box is usually a single-line text box or search icon (which will transform into a ...
for web pages and image searches, user help and advanced services. The Japanese search engine closed on March 16, 2015. *''
Baidu Tieba Baidu Tieba () is a Chinese online forum hosted by the Chinese web services company Baidu. Baidu Tieba was established on December 3, 2003 as an online community that heavily integrates Baidu's search engine. Users may search for a topic of i ...
'' () provides users with a query-based searchable community to exchange views and share knowledge and experiences. It is an
online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...
bound tightly with Baidu's search service. *''Baidu News'' provides links to a selection of local, national and international news, and presents news stories in a searchable format, within minutes of their publication on the Web. Baidu News uses an automated process to display links to related headlines, which enables people to see many different viewpoints on the same story.
Chinese government The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...
and
Chinese industry Industrial sector, Industry was 39.9% of China's gross domestic product (gross domestic product, GDP) in 2017. In 2007, industry (including mining, manufacturing, construction, and Electricity generation, power) contributed 46.7 percent of GDP i ...
sources stated that Baidu received a license from Beijing, which allows the search engine to become a full-fledged news website. Thus Baidu is able to provide its own reports, besides showing certain results as a search engine. Baidu is the first Chinese search engine to receive such a license. *''
Baidu Knows Baidu Knows () is a Chinese language collaborative web-based collective intelligence by question and answer provided by the Chinese search engine Baidu. Like Baidu itself, the knows is heavily self-censored in line with government regulatio ...
'' () provides users with a query-based searchable community to share knowledge and experience. Through Baidu Knows, registered members of Baidu Knows can post specific questions for other members to respond and also answer questions of other members. *''Baidu MP3 Search'' provides algorithm-generated links to songs and other multimedia files provided by Internet content providers. Baidu started with a popular music search feature called "MP3 Search" and its comprehensive lists of popular Chinese music, '' Baidu 500'', based on download numbers. Baidu locates file formats such as MP3, WMA and SWF. The multimedia search feature is mainly used in searches for
Chinese pop music C-pop is an abbreviation for Chinese popular music (), a loosely defined musical genre by artists originating from mainland China,Hong Kong and Taiwan (the Greater China region). This also includes countries where Chinese languages are used by ...
. While such works are
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...
ed under
Chinese law Chinese law is one of the oldest legal traditions in the world. The core of modern Chinese law is based on Germanic-style civil law, socialist law, and traditional Chinese approaches. For most of the history of China, its legal system h ...
, Baidu claims on its legal disclaimer that linking to these files does not break Chinese law. This has led other local search engines to follow the practice, including Google China (Hong Kong), which uses an intermediate company called Top100 to offer a similar MP3 Search service. *''Baidu Image Search'' enables users to search millions of images on the Internet. Baidu Image Search offers features such as search by image size and by image file type. Image listings are organized by various categories, which are updated automatically through
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...
s. *''Baidu Video Search'' enables users to search for and access through hyperlinks of online video clips that are hosted on third parties' Websites. *''
Baidu Space Baidu Space () was an online social networking service provided by Baidu where users could record and share their lives easily. Users could also find people who have the same interests as their friends and communicate with them. It was launched on ...
'' the
social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
of Baidu, allows registered users to create personalized homepages in a query-based searchable community. Registered users can post their Web logs, or blogs, photo album and certain personal information on their homepages and establish their own communities of friends who are also registered users. By July 2009, it had reached 100 million registered users *''
Baidu Baike Baidu Baike (; , also known as Baidu Wiki) is a semi-regulated Chinese-language collaborative online encyclopedia owned by the Chinese technology company Baidu. The beta version was launched on April 20, 2006, and the official version was lau ...
'', is China's largest online encyclopedia by users and
page view In web analytics and website management, a pageview or page view, abbreviated in business to PV and occasionally called page impression, is a request to load a single HTML file ( web page) of an Internet site. On the World Wide Web, a page request ...
s/
web traffic Web traffic is the data sent and received by visitors to a website. Since the mid-1990s, web traffic has been the largest portion of Internet traffic. Sites monitor the incoming and outgoing traffic to see which parts or pages of their site are ...
; second largest encyclopedia by article count (after
Hudong Baike.com (), formerly Hudong and Hoodong (), is a for-profit social network in Chinese, including the world's largest Chinese encyclopedia. It is one of the two largest wikis in China, along with Baidu Baike, claiming to have more than 18 mill ...
). *''Baidu Translate'' (), an online translation service originated in February 2013. As of April 2020, it supports 200 languages, the most out of any online translation service, to help fight against
COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. **''China Digital Village Encyclopedia'' (), in June 2009, Baidu announced it would compile the largest digital rural encyclopedia in China, according to
China Securities Journal The ''China Securities Journal'' (abbreviated as CSJ or ZGZQB), also transliterated as ''China Securities Post'' or ''China Securities News'', is a national securities newspaper in China, published by Xinhua News Agency. It is based in Beijing, a ...
. It is expected to include 500,000 administrative villages in China, covering 80% of the total 600,000
villages in China Villages (), formally village-level divisions () in China, serve as a fundamental organizational unit for its rural population (census, mail system). Basic local divisions like neighborhoods and communities are not informal, but have defined boun ...
. Baidu is creating the content of this encyclopedia largely from participants of its "rural information competition" (), on which it has spent roughly five million yuan on incentives. Baidu sees China's rural areas as great potential for electronic business (
e-business Electronic business (or "Online Business" or "e-business") is any kind of business or commercial transaction that includes sharing information across the internet. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, grou ...
), evidenced by the fact that revenue grew the fastest from agriculture, forestry, animals, and fishery in the company's keyword promotion project, a crucial source of Baidu's total revenue. In addition to Baidu Encyclopedia, the company scales up keyword promotion and takes advantage of other products, such as Baidu Zhidao and Baidu Youa, to provide consultation, brand ad exhibitions and online network marketing/sales platform support, marketing information for rural tourism and promoting local products. * ''Baidu Search Ranking'' provides listings of search terms based on daily search queries entered on Baidu.com. The listings are organized by categories and allow users to locate search terms on topics of interest. * ''Baidu Web Directory'' enables users to browse and search through websites that have been organized into categories. * ''Baidu Government Information Search'' allows users to search various regulations, rules, notices, and other information announced by People's Republic of China government entities. * ''Baidu Postal Code Search'' enables users to search postal codes in hundreds of cities in China. * ''Educational Website Search'' allows users to search the Websites of educational institutions. Baidu University Search allows users to search information on or browse through the Websites of specific
universities in China This article is a non-comprehensive list of universities in China, which is defined as the People's Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, as well as the Hong Kong and Macau SARs. By September 2021, there were 3,012 colleges and universit ...
* ''Baidu Legal Search'' enables users to search a database that contains national and local laws and regulations, cases, legal decisions, and law dictionaries. * ''Baidu Love'' is a query-based searchable community where registered users can write and post messages to loved ones. * '' Baidu Patent Search'' enables users to search for specific Chinese patents and provides basic patent information in the search results, including the patent's name, application number, filing date, issue date, inventor information and brief description of the patent. * ''Baidu Games'' is an online channel that allows users to search or browse through game-related news and content. * ''Baidu-Hexun Finance'', a financial information Website, with partner Hexun.com, a financial information service provider in China with news reporting and
securities A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
consulting licenses. Users can search or browse through economic and financial news, information relating to personal
wealth management Wealth management (WM) or wealth management advisory (WMA) is an investment advisory service that provides financial management and wealth advisory services to a wide array of clients ranging from affluent to high-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high- ...
and related market statistics. * ''Baidu Statistics Search'' enables users to search statistics that have been published by the
Government of the People's Republic of China The Government of the People's Republic of China () is an authoritarian political system in the People's Republic of China under the exclusive political leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It consists of legislative, executive, mili ...
* ''Baidu Entertainment'' is an online channel for entertainment-related news and content. Users can search or browse through news and other information relating to specific stars, movies, television series and music. * ''Baidu Tongji'' is Baidu's
web analytics Web analytics is the measurement, data collection, collection, analysis, and reporting of web Data (computing), data to understand and optimize web usage. Web analytics is not just a process for measuring web traffic but can be used as a tool fo ...
platform. It provides users with many reports about visitors to their website, such as a report on the source of visitors to their website, a user demographics report, reports on content viewed on site, and a
heat map A heat map (or heatmap) is a data visualization technique that shows magnitude of a phenomenon as color in two dimensions. The variation in color may be by hue or intensity, giving obvious visual cues to the reader about how the phenomenon is c ...
report. * ''Baidu Dictionary'' provides users with
lookup In computer science, a lookup table (LUT) is an array that replaces runtime computation with a simpler array indexing operation. The process is termed as "direct addressing" and LUTs differ from hash tables in a way that, to retrieve a value v wi ...
and text translation services between Chinese and English. * ''Baidu Youa'', an
online shopping Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the r ...
/
e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
platform through which businesses can sell their products and services at Baidu-registered stores. * ''Baidu Desktop Search'', a free, downloadable software, which enables users to search all files saved on their computer without launching a
Web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
. * ''Baidu Sobar'', a free, downloadable software, displayed on a browser's tool bar and makes the search function available on every Web page that a user browses. * ''Baidu Wireless'' provides various services for mobile phones, including a Chinese-input
front end processor A front end processor (FEP), or a communications processor, is a small-sized computer which interfaces to the host computer a number of networks, such as SNA, or a number of peripheral devices, such as terminals, disk units, printers and ta ...
(FEP) for various popular
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s including Android,
Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...
S60v5 The S60 Platform (formerly Series 60 User Interface) was a software platform for smartphones that runs on top of the Symbian operating system. It was created by Nokia based on the 'Pearl' user interface from Symbian Ltd. It was introduced at ...
, and
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones and personal digital assistants. Its origin dated back to Windows CE in 1996, though Windows Mobile itself first appeared in 2000 as Pock ...
. * ''Baidu Anti-Virus'' offers
anti-virus software Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name. ...
products and
computer virus A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...
-related news. * ''Baidu Safety Center'', launched in 2008, provides users with free virus scanning,
system A system is a group of Interaction, interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment (systems), environment, is described by its boundaries, ...
repair The technical meaning of maintenance involves functional checks, servicing, repairing or replacing of necessary devices, equipment, machinery, building infrastructure, and supporting utilities in industrial, business, and residential installa ...
and online security evaluations * ''Baidu Internet TV'' (known as ''Baidu Movies'') allows users to search, watch and download free movies, television series, cartoons, and other programs hosted on its servers * ''Chinese-language voice assistant search services'' for Chinese speakers visiting Japan was launched in 2008, with partner Japanese personal handy-phone system operator
Willcom Y!mobile is a Japanese mobile phone operator. Y!mobile is a brand used by SoftBank Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group Corporation, that provides mobile telecommunications and ADSL services. The current CEO o ...
Inc. * ''Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific'', joint venture with
Discovery Communications Discovery, Inc. was an American multinational mass media factual television conglomerate based in New York City. Established in 1985, the company operated a group of factual and lifestyle television brands, such as the namesake Discovery Chann ...
, focusing on science, technology, space, natural history, engineering, paleontology, archaeology, history, and culture. * ''Baidu Index'' (known as ''Baidu Zhishu'') allows users to look up the search volume and trend for certain hot keywords and phrases. It can serve as a Baidu keyword research tool. * ''Baidu Bookmarks'' (known as ''Baidu Soucang'') is a social bookmarking service supported by Baidu.com * ''
Baidu Browser Baidu Browser ( ) is a discontinued WebKit and Trident web browser developed by Baidu for Personal Computers and mobile phones. The Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and markete ...
'' is a
web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...
first released as a beta in July 2011. It has been noted that the user interface looks very similar to
Google Chrome Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...
/
Chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...
. * ''
Baidu Yi Baidu Yi (, 易 ''Yì'' meaning "exchange" or "easy"), also known as "Baidu Yun", was an operating system for mobile devices until Baidu suspended it. It is based on Google's Android but is a fork by Baidu, the dominant search engine operator i ...
'' is a smartphone operating system based on Android OS, announced in September 2011. * ''Baidu Library'' is an open online platform for users to share documents. All the documents in Baidu Library are uploaded by the users and Baidu does not edit or change the documents. Users can read and download lecture notes, exercises, sample exams, presentation slides, materials of various subjects, variety of documents templates, etc. However, it is not completely free. In order to download some documents, users should have enough Baidu points to cover the points asked by the uploaders. Users could gain Baidu points by making contribution to Baidu Library and other users, such as uploading documents, categorizing documents, evaluating documents, etc. * ''Baidu Experience'' is a product of Baidu primarily focusing on supporting the users with practical problems. In other words, it helps the users to solve the "how to do" problem. It was launched in October 2010. In architecture, Baidu Experience has integrated and reformatted Baidu Encyclopedia and Baike Knows. The first difference between Baidu Experience and Baidu Knows is that the former concentrates on specific "how to do" problems while the later contains a wider range of problems. The second difference is that users could share their experience without being asked on Baidu Experience. * ''Baidu around You'' is a searching and sharing platform aiming at supporting the users with making their consumption decisions. There are currently 7 main categories of information on Baidu around You, including food, shopping, recreation, hotels, fitness, beauty and traveling. In addition, Baidu around You provides the users with convenient services and local information, partially coming from the users and searchable by cities. *
Qunar Qunar.com is a Chinese online travel agency headquartered in Beijing. Qunar () means "Where to go" in Chinese. History The website was founded in May 2005. In 2011, Baidu acquired a majority interest in the company for $306 million. In Novemb ...
(Qunar Cayman Islands Limited), travel-booking service controlled by Baidu. As of 2013, Qunar had 31.4 million active users and raised $167 Million at its
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
that year. It is listed at NASDAQ. * Baidu Duer: Another addition to the family of virtual assistants. * Baidu Zhanzhang: The free suite of webmaster tools offered by Baidu. *Baidu music, a music service *Baidu news feed, a news service *Baidu Wallet, a mobile wallet with over 100million Chinese users. Its recent partnership with PayPal enables users to make payment in PayPal's 17million international e-commerce site. Its former CEO was Zhang Zheng Hua, who later became UNPay's founder. *Baidu CarLife, automotive infotainment platform similar to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto


Advertisements

Baidu's primary advertising product is called Baidu Tuiguang and is similar to
Google Ads Google Ads (formerly Google AdWords) is an online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers bid to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, or videos to web users. It can place ads both in the result ...
and
AdSense Google AdSense is a program run by Google through which website publishers in the Google Network of content sites serve text, images, video, or interactive media advertisements that are targeted to the site content and audience. These advert ...
. It is a
pay per click Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is usually ...
advertising platform that allows advertisers to have their ads shown in Baidu search results pages and on other websites that are part of Baidu Union. However, Baidu's search results are also based on payments by advertisers. This has prompted criticism and skepticism among Chinese users, with
People's daily The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...
commenting in 2018 on issues regarding reliability of Baidu results. Often as many as the first two pages of search results tend to be paid advertisers. Baidu sells its advertising products via a network of resellers. Baidu's web administrative tools are all in Chinese, which makes it tough for non-Chinese speakers to use. Recently, a third-party company began to develop a tool with an English-language interface for Baidu advertising programs. Paid advertising can only be used by advertisers with a registered business address either in China or in a list of other East Asian countries.


Pay for placement (P4P)

Baidu focuses on generating revenues primarily from
online marketing Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
services. Baidu's
pay for placement Pay for placement, or P4P, is an Internet advertising model in which advertisements appear along with relevant search results from a Web search engine. Under this model, advertisers bid for the right to present an advertisement with specific search ...
(P4P)
platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...
enables its customers to reach users who search for information related to their products or services. Customers use automated online tools to create text-based descriptions of their web pages and bid on keywords that trigger the display of their webpage information and link. Baidu's P4P platform features an automated online sign-up process that customers use to activate their accounts at any time. The P4P platform is an online marketplace that introduces Internet search users to customers who bid for priority placement in the search results. Baidu also uses third-party distributors to sell some of its online marketing services to end customers and offers discounts to these distributors in consideration of their services. Baidu offers certain consultative services, such as keyword suggestions, account management and performance reporting. Baidu suggests synonyms and associated phrases to use as keywords or text in search listings. These suggestions can improve
clickthrough rate Click-through rate (CTR) is the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of total users who view a page, email, or advertisement. It is commonly used to measure the success of an online advertising campaign for a particular web ...
s of the customer's listing and increase the likelihood that a user will enter into a transaction with the customer. Baidu also provides online daily reports of the number of clickthroughs, clicked keywords and the total costs incurred, as well as statistical reports organized by geographic region. However, this too has invited criticism amongst Chinese internet users.


ProTheme

Baidu offers ProTheme services to some of its Baidu Union members, which enable these members to display on their properties its customers' promotional links that are relevant to the subject and content of such members' properties. Baidu generates revenues from ProTheme services based on the number of clicks on its customers' links and share the revenues with its Baidu Union members in accordance with pre-agreed terms. Baidu's fixed-ranking services allow customers to display query-sensitive text links at a designated location on its search results pages. Its Targetizement services enable customers to reach their targeted Internet users by displaying their advertisements only when their targeted Internet users browse Baidu's certain Web pages.


Baidu TV

Baidu operates its advertising service, Baidu TV, in partnership with Ads it! Media Corporation, an online advertising agency and technology company. Baidu TV provides advertisers access to the websites of its Baidu Union members, allowing advertisers to choose Websites on which they post their video advertisements with the aid of its advertisement targeting and matching system. It also offers a brand advertising service, Brand-Link. In June 2008, Baidu launched My Marketing Center, a customized platform integrating industry information, market trends and business, and industry news and reports to assist existing customers in their sales and marketing efforts. Other forms of its online advertising services allow customers to display query sensitive and non-query sensitive advertisements on its websites, including graphical advertisements.


Baidu Union

Baidu Union consists of several third-party websites and
software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...
s. Union members incorporate a Baidu search box or
toolbar The toolbar, also called a bar or standard toolbar (originally known as ribbon) is a graphical control element on which on-screen icons can be used. A toolbar often allows for quick access to functions that are commonly used in the program. Some ...
and match its
sponsored link Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet advertising model used to drive traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher (typically a search engine, website owner, or a network of websites) when the ad is clicked. Pay-per-click is usuall ...
s with the content on their properties. Their users can conduct search via the Baidu search box or toolbar and can click the sponsored links located on their properties. Baidu has also launched programs through which it displays the
online advertising Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to promote products and services to audiences and platform users. ...
of its customers on Baidu Union websites, and share the fees generated by these advertisements with the owners of these Baidu Union websites. As of May 2011, there were 230,000 partner websites that displayed Baidu Union ads on their websites.


Competition

Baidu competes with
Petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...
,
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
,
Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The ...
, 360 Search (www.so.com), Yahoo! China,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
's
Bing Bing most often refers to: * Bing Crosby (1903–1977), American singer * Microsoft Bing, a web search engine Bing may also refer to: Food and drink * Bing (bread), a Chinese flatbread * Bing (soft drink), a UK brand * Bing cherry, a varie ...
and
MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant messaging client, instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger ser ...
,
Sina Sina may refer to: Relating to China * Chin (China), or Sina (), old Chinese form of the Sanskrit name Cina () ** Shina (word), or Sina ( ja, 支那, links=no), archaic Japanese word for China ** Sinae, Latin name for China Places * Sina, Al ...
,
NetEase NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company providing online services centered on content, community, communications, and commerce. The company was founded in 1997 by Ding Lei. NetEase develops and operates online PC and mobile game ...
's Youdao and PaiPai,
Alibaba Ali Baba (character), Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''. Ali Baba or Alibaba may also refer to: Films * Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902 film), ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (1902 film), a F ...
's
Taobao Taobao () is a Chinese online shopping platform. It is headquartered in Hangzhou and is owned by Alibaba. According to Alexa rank, it is the eighth most-visited website globally in 2021. Taobao.com was registered on April 21, 2003 by Alibaba ...
,
TOM Online TOM Online is a mobile Internet company in China, operating the popular Chinese-language Internet portal (www.tom.com) and offering a variety of online and mobile services, including wireless internet and online advertising. It is a subsidiary of ...
, and
EachNet eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became a ...
. Baidu is the most used search engine in China, controlling 76.05 percent of China's market share. The number of Internet users in China had reached 705 million by the end of 2015, according to a report by the internetlivestats.com. In an August 2010 ''Wall Street Journal'' article, Baidu played down its benefit from
Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
's having moved its China search service to
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, but Baidu's share of revenue in China's search-advertising market grew six percentage points in the second quarter to 70%, according to Beijing-based research firm Analysys International. It is also evident that Baidu is attempting to enter the Internet social network market. , it is discussing the possibility of working with Facebook, which would lead to a Chinese version of the international social network, managed by Baidu. This plan, if executed, would face off Baidu with competition from the three popular Chinese social networks
Qzone Qzone () is a social networking website based in China which was created by Tencent in 2005. It allows users to write blogs, keep diaries, send photos, listen to music, and watch videos. Users can set their Qzone background and select accessories ...
,
Renren The Renren Network (), formerly known as the Xiaonei Network (), is a Chinese social networking service similar to Facebook.Kaixin001 Kaixin001 () is a social networking website launched in March 2008. In 2015, Kaixin001 ranks as the 743rd most popular website in China and 7,277 overall according to Alexa Internet. On 20 May 2009, Kaixin001 formally sued Qianxiang Group for ...
as well as induce rivalry with instant-messaging giant,
Tencent QQ Tencent QQ (), also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service and web portal developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent. QQ offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group ...
. On February 22, 2012,
Hudong Baike.com (), formerly Hudong and Hoodong (), is a for-profit social network in Chinese, including the world's largest Chinese encyclopedia. It is one of the two largest wikis in China, along with Baidu Baike, claiming to have more than 18 mill ...
submitted a complaint to the
State Administration for Industry and Commerce Prior to March 2018, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC; ) was the authority in the People's Republic of China responsible for advancing legislation concerning the administration of industry and commerce in the People's Repub ...
asking for a review of the behavior of Baidu, accusing it of being monopolistic. By August 2014, Baidu's search market share in China has dropped to 56.3%, where Qihoo 360, its closest competitor who has rebranded its search engine as so.com, has increased its market share to 29.0%, according to report from CNZZ.com. In February 2015, Baidu was alleged to use anticompetitive tactics in Brazil against the Brazilian online security firm PSafe and
Qihoo 360 Qihoo 360 (; approximate pronunciation CHEE-hoo), full name 360 Security Technology Inc., is a Chinese internet security company that has developed the antivirus software programs 360 Safeguard and 360 Mobile Safe, the Web browser 360 Secure Bro ...
(the largest investor of PSafe). In an ongoing competition in AI natural language processing called
General Language Understanding Evaluation These datasets are applied for machine learning research and have been cited in peer-reviewed academic journals. Datasets are an integral part of the field of machine learning. Major advances in this field can result from advances in learning ...
, otherwise known as GLUE, Baidu took a lead over Microsoft and Google in December 2019.Karen Ha
"Baidu has a new trick for teaching AI the meaning of language", MIT Technology Review
, December 26, 2019


Research and patents

Baidu has started to invest in deep learning research and is integrating new deep learning technology into some of its apps and products, including Phoenix Nest. Phoenix Nest is Baidu's ad-bidding platform. In April 2012 Baidu JDC long live applied for a patent for its "DNA copyright recognition" technology. This technology automatically scans files that are uploaded by Internet users, and recognizes and filters out content that may violate copyright law. This allows Baidu to offer an infringement-free platform. Baidu has applied for a utility patent in the UK, for its proprietary site-wise search technology which is currently available in China. Baidu has more than 7,000 published AI patent applications in China, the highest in the country. The AI open platform Baidu Brain has made available more than 250 core AI capabilities to over 1.9 million developers, while PaddlePaddle, the largest open-source deep learning platform in China, services 84,000 enterprises. Industries throughout China are using the PaddlePaddle platform to create specialized applications for their sectors, from the automotive industry's acceleration of autonomous vehicles to the health-care industry's applications for fighting COVID-19. In April 2022, Baidu announced they gained permits from China in order to provide the first driverless taxis. The company aim to provide driverless ride-hailing services to the public and have 10 autonomous cars set to begin offering rides to passengers within a 23-square-mile area in suburban begin beginning the 28th of April 2022. In July 2022, Baidu unveiled the Apollo RT6, a driverless vehicle that is planned to join Baidu's driverless fleet in 2023.


Censorship

According to the ''
China Digital Times China Digital Times (CDT; ) is a US-based 501(c)(3) organization that runs a bilingual news website covering China. The site focuses on news items which are blocked, deleted or suppressed by China's state censors. History The website was started ...
'', Baidu has a long history of being the most active and restrictive online censor in the search arena. Documents leaked in April 2009 from an employee in Baidu's internal monitoring and censorship department show a long list of blocked websites and censored topics on Baidu search. In May 2011, activists sued Baidu in the United States for violating the U.S. Constitution by the censorship it conducts in accord with the demand of the Chinese government. A U.S. judge has ruled that the Chinese search engine Baidu has the right to block pro-democracy works from its query results under
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
rights, dismissing a lawsuit that sought to punish the company for Internet censorship. In 2017, Baidu began coordinating with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security as well as 372 Internet police departments to detect information related to "anti-government rumors" and then flooding "Baidu-linked web sites, news sites and devices with alerts dispelling the so-called misinformation." This was done using natural language processing, big data and artificial intelligence. As part of the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, Chinese regulators instructed Baidu, along with other Internet companies, to "conduct special supervision" on news and information related to the
disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
. In November 2022, Sustainalytics downgraded Baidu to "non-compliant" with the
United Nations Global Compact The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to encourage businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is a princ ...
principles due to complicity with censorship.


Controversies


Death of Wei Zexi

In 2016, Baidu's P4P search results reportedly contributed to the death of a student who tried an experimental cancer therapy he found online. The 21-year-old college student was named Wèi Zéxī (魏则西), who studied in
Xidian University Xidian University () is a public research university in Xi'an, Shaanxi, China, that is administered by the Ministry of Education of China. Xidian focuses on electronics and information education and research, and has programs covering enginee ...
. Wei was diagnosed with
synovial sarcoma A synovial sarcoma (also known as malignant synovioma) is a rare form of cancer which occurs primarily in the extremities of the arms or legs, often in proximity to joint capsules and tendon sheaths. It is a type of soft-tissue sarcoma. The name " ...
, a rare form of cancer. He found the Second Hospital of the Beijing Armed Police Corps (武警北京市总队第二医院) through the search engine Baidu, on which the hospital had been promoting itself. The treatment proved unsuccessful and Wèi died in April 2016. After Wei's family spent around 200,000 yuan (around US$31,150) for treatment in the hospital, Wei Zexi died on April 12, 2016. The incident triggered massive online discussions after Wei's death. On May 2, 2016,
Cyberspace Administration of China The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC; ) is the central internet regulator, censor, oversight, and control agency for the People's Republic of China. The office also holds the administrative title of the party's Office of the Central C ...
(CAC), the top watchdog for China's Internet space, dispatched a team of investigators to Baidu. The case is still ongoing. One report claimed medical advertising makes up for 30% of Baidu's ad revenue, much of which comes from for-profit hospitals that belong to the "Putian Network", a collection of hospitals across the country founded by medical entrepreneurs associated with the
Putian Putian or Putien (, Putian dialect: ''Pó-chéng''), also known as Puyang (莆阳) and Puxian (莆仙), historically known as Xinghua or Hing Hwa (), is a prefecture-level city in eastern Fujian province, China. It borders Fuzhou City to the nor ...
region of Fujian province. The investigation led Chinese regulators to impose several restrictions on Baidu, including adding disclaimers to promotional content and establishing channels for complaints about Baidu services. In addition, Baidu's search function now largely directs users to contents published on platforms under Baidu's control, leading Chinese media scholar Fang Kecheng to proclaim that "Search engine Baidu is dead".


Commercialization of Tieba

Baidu sold the hemophilia online community, one of the communities of Tieba, to unqualified hospitals. In January 2016, Baidu announced that it will stop selling all of its illness-related Tieba. On January 12, Baidu officially announced to the public that all Baidu Tieba for all types of diseases will completely stop commercial cooperation and will only be open to authoritative public welfare organizations. In response to Baidu's decision, Lin Jinlong, president of the Hunan Medical and Health Industry Association, said that private hospitals have entered a period of industry transformation and upgrading, and are neither dependent on posting bar ads nor counting on competitive rankings anymore, so Baidu's decision will not have a negative impact on the industry.


DO Global subsidiary ad-fraud in downloaded apps

On April 20, 2019, it was reported that several applications for Android devices developed by the subsidiary company, DO Global (formerly DU Group), were surreptitiously running revenue enhancing background programs on user devices since at least 2016. These programs, part of six known applications developed by the company, and downloaded hundreds of millions times, were clicking on internet ads – even when the devices were idle, and unbeknownst to
end users In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrato ...
, in order to increase revenue generated by "clicks".''Google Play Store Ad Fraud DU Group[sic] at Baidu''
; Kothe, Ben; April 20, 2019; Article @ BuzzFeed News; text= ''Following a BuzzFeed News investigation, Google removed six apps from the Play store that belonged to a major Chinese developer.''; by-line date: April 17, 2019; by-line reporters: Silverman, Craig– & –Singer-Vine, Jeremy; Retrieved April 20, 2019
Just one of the apps, all of which were available on
Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
, had been downloaded 50 million times alone and carried a user rating of 4.5 stars by tens of thousands. Google banned DO Global and more than 100 of its apps from the
Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating sys ...
on April 26, 2019. DO Global was also banned from Google's AdMob Network. Apps from another developer, ES Global, including the
ES File Explorer ES File Explorer is a file manager/explorer designed by ES Global, a subsidiary of DO Global, for Android devices. It includes features like cloud storage integration, file transfer from Android to Windows via FTP or LAN, and a root browser. It ...
, that were owned by DO Global were banned from the Play Store and the account was suspended.


Block in India

In August 2020, following the 2020 China–India skirmishes, Baidu was one of several Chinese websites that were banned or blocked in India for national security reasons.


See also

*
Panguso Panguso () is a Chinese company offering the search engine Panguso.com, which is used mostly in Chinese. Compared to its private competitors, the Chinese Baidu and the US-based Google, which are used more frequently in China, the two shareholders ...
*
Petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...
*
Sogou Sogou, Inc. () is a Chinese technology company that offers a search engine. It is a subsidiary of Tencent. The offices of Sogou are located on the southeast corner of Tsinghua University in Beijing. Sogou also has offices in Chengdu co-locate ...
*
Alibaba Ali Baba (character), Ali Baba is a character from the folk tale ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves''. Ali Baba or Alibaba may also refer to: Films * Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1902 film), ''Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves'' (1902 film), a F ...
*
Intellectual property in the People's Republic of China Intellectual property rights (IPRs) have been acknowledged and protected in China since the 1980s. China has acceded to the major international conventions on protection of rights to intellectual property. Domestically, protection of intelle ...
*
Software industry in China The software industry in China is the business of developing and publishing software and related services in China. The size of the industry including software and information services in 2013 was worth 3060 billion RMB (about $493 billion) accord ...


References


Further reading

* Lee, Melanie (January 19, 2010)
"NEWSMAKER-Baidu founder rules China's Web with pragmatism"
Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was estab ...
. * Udeze, Chuka (March 26, 2012)
"Baidu Search to be Integrated by Apple on iOS Devices"
* Kohout, Martin (October 30, 2014)
"Spyware Baidu to Sony Xperia smartphones"
FreeBit.cz.


External links

* {{authority control Internet search engines Online companies of China Internet properties established in 2000 Science and technology in the People's Republic of China Software companies of China Multinational companies headquartered in China Companies listed on the Nasdaq Notorious markets Chinese brands 2000 establishments in China Offshore companies of the Cayman Islands Electric vehicle manufacturers of China Internet censorship in India