Google's Lookalike is Expanding in China

China's leading search engine, Baidu.com Inc. becomes a news portal as well. This was due to the license that the search portal received from Beijing. Both government and industry sources stated today that the license allows the company, which is also known as "China's Google", to provide news as a fully-fledged news website.

Chinese government source stated that the license, regarding news content service, allows Baidu.com to make its own reports and not simply display results news from other websites.

Government source, being aware of the situation, mentioned that the company has already begun preparing its own news department. However, the spokesperson from Baidu.com did not comment on this.

Due to the 2008 Beijing Olympics run-up, the media and journalist in China may feel somewhat free. The news that can be politically sensitive, however, are still remaining, in a way, censored.

The largest internet portal in China, called Sina.com, received he permission to carry its own reports several years ago, but apart from it, Baidu.com represents the first Chinese search engine to receive this type of license.

Baidu.com is fourth in Alexa's internet rankings. The company has more than a half of market share. The search engine provides an index of more than 740 million web pages, about 80 million images as well as 10 million various multimedia files.

The website's name comes from a poem, called "Song Dynasty", which is constructed in the ci form. The poem was written back in the 12th century by Xin Qiji.

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