[photopress:techcrunch.gif,full,alignright]Search attempts for Google and other search engines being directed to Baidu.com which is a rumor current on the Internet has proved incorrect.
The claim first appeared on TechCrunch, a U.S. blog that largely covers Internet start-ups. The headline of that post alleged ‘Baidu hijacking Google traffic In China,’ but offered no evidence to prove the claim apart from an undated, modified screenshot showing Baidu’s Web page below the URL for Google Blogsearch.
In a follow-up post, TechCrunch said ‘new reports have surfaced that would indicate that China has unilaterally blocked all three major search engines in China and is redirecting all requests to Baidu.’ However, several Internet users — four in Beijing and two in Shanghai — reported this was not the case.
While the Chinese government may not be redirecting search engine traffic to Baidu, it is suggested that censors did that in 2002, just before the previous Party Congress opened in Beijing. At that time, censors cut off access to Google and redirected traffic to several local search engines, including Baidu. However, the rerouting did not affect all users and did not appear to be done at a national level.
Source: ComputerWorld