BIDU is the ticker symbol for Baidu Inc., a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ stock exchange.http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=BIDU Baidu is China's #1 search engine. It faces criticism from democratic countries for submitting to China's censorship laws.http://news.techworld.com/security/3248907/baidu-ceo-claims-censorship-is-fact-of-life-in-china/
Baidu works much in the same manner as Google, and allows users to perform Internet searches for specific subjects using the Chinese language. When a Baidu search is performed, a list of links to websites, relevant images, news items and other various multimedia files is brought up.http://www.cnanalyst.com/baidu.html The company's share price rose approximately 144% during 2010 thanks to company growth. It also controls 73% of the online search market in China.http://www.climbthenet.com/baidu-credits-google-retreat-for-massive-growth-in-2010/544
Internal Monitoring and Censorship Document Leak
A document containing censorship guidelines as well as specific words and topics to be censored was leaked by a Baidu employee. It is not 100% clear as to when the document was leaked, but the list contained information from November 2008 to March 2009. The leak confirmed the suspicions of many about the censorship aims of the search engine.http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2009/04/baidus-internal-monitoring-and-censorship-document-leaked/
Baidu Profits
In April of 2010, it was announced that Baidu experienced a near doubling of its earnings in the first quarter of the fiscal year. This leap in profits is said to be a direct result of disagreements between the Chinese government and Google. Google has refused to continue to censor its searches and thus ceased operations of its Chinese site, redirecting Chinese users to its Hong Kong search page instead.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575213004190618326.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Another reason for the jump in profits is said to be a rise in Chinese consumer acceptance of the search engine's new advertising methods.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575213004190618326.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Baidu posted net profit earnings of 480.5 million yuan, or 70.4 million American dollars for the first quarter of the 2010 fiscal year.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423504575213004190618326.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Chinese Search Engine Under Attack on Tuesday
A newscaster covers the disruption of Baidu, China's largest search engine. She states that a cyber attack was confirmed by the company itself in the morning, and that the search engine resumed operation by the afternoon. Baidu claimed that their domain name server in the United States was illegally attacked, but further details weren't given. The search engine, which controls the majority of the search market in China, had been down on just a single previous occasion in 2006.
References
Fast Facts
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Founded
2000
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Market Cap
$9.37 billion
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Fiscal Year End
December 31
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Profit Margin
31.52%
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Gross Profit
$299 million
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Outstanding Shares
34.55 million
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Dividend
None available
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Exchange
