The Japan site hasn't been accessible within China for two days, Wei Fang, a
Baidu spokesman, said today, declining to provide a reason. The site, which
carries advertising from small and medium-sized Chinese companies, can be
accessed from outside China. Wang Lijian, a spokesman for the Ministry of
Information Industry, the nation's Internet regulator, declined to comment.
The blockage highlights the challenge of operating in a regulated market where
the government bans criticism against the state and denies access to Web sites
including those of Amnesty International. Google Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and
Microsoft Corp. have restricted some of their online material in China, the
world's second-biggest Internet market by users.
``The blocking of the site may hinder Baidu's ability to build up traffic to
the Japan site,'' said Richard Ji, a Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. analyst in Hong
Kong. The site targets Chinese companies that want to advertise in Japan, he
said.
From China, searches through the home page of Baidu Japan return network error
messages. That's characteristic of blocking by the Chinese government,
according to Andrew Lih, a former Columbia University professor who lives in
Beijing and is writing a book about Internet-based communities.
Baidu is the first Chinese company to have a Web site blocked in the country,
Lih said.
Government Ban
China was home to 137 million Internet users at the end of 2006, according to
government data. It trailed only the U.S., which had 211 million Web users last
year, according to researcher Nielsen/NetRatings.
China, which owns all of the country's newspapers and broadcasting stations,
bans anti-government material and limits access to some overseas Web sites.
Baidu opened a trial version of its Japan site last month as part of efforts to
attract Web users from the world's second- biggest economy. The site has Web
links related to Falun Gong, the spiritual group outlawed by the Chinese
government in 1999, and pictures of the 1989 student protests in Tiananmen
Square in Beijing. Such information can't be found on Baidu's China site.
Google, owner of the world's most-used search engine, caved in to government
pressure by opening a China Web site last year that excludes links to
anti-government, pornographic, and gambling content censored by the Chinese
government.
The Mountain View, California-based company had a 17 percent share of the
Chinese search market in the fourth quarter last year, second to Baidu's 58
percent, according to Beijing-based researcher Analysys International.
Google, Yahoo Competitor
Baidu Japan only allows users to search for Web sites and online pictures. The
company said it plans to spend about $15 million this year on the Japan site,
which competes against Yahoo! Japan Corp. and Google.
American depositary shares of Baidu rose 0.6 percent yesterday to $99.28 in
Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The stock has fallen 12 percent this
year, compared with a 2.7 percent gain for Google.
Baidu needs ``a service in Japan with content people won't suspect is censored
by the Chinese government, but it's that same content that gets them in trouble
in China,'' said Florian Pihs, an analyst with Analysys.
Bloomberg
