Microsoft’s Censorship Search Deal with China

On the day America celebrated its independence, Microsoft announced its growing presence in the Chinese market for online searches with a deal with Baidu, China’s leading search engine: Microsoft will supply search results for English-language queries on the Chinese search provider. More controversially, Microsoft will also censor its search results according to local law. 

Microsoft’s entrance comes in the wake of Google’s exit, when the search giant stunned the world with their policy change 18 months ago, that they were no longer willing to censor search results. On their blog, Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond wrote: “So over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Baidu is the top search engine in China, with Google in second place. But now with Google.cn shut down and a pact with Baidu in place, Microsoft is in position to take Google’s place.

An interesting discussion on the conflicting loyalties and motivations, stockholders’ interests versus the “greater good”, search engines must deal with when it comes to complying with China’s censorship requirement can be found here.