GoogleBaidu.com: no merger, just an interesting domain dispute.
Baidu might beat Google in China, but Google just got a hold of a little bit of Baidu.
Google was just awarded the domain name GoogleBaidu.com in an arbitration case before National Arbitration Forum.
You can understand why Google was irked by the domain name. It resolves to a page that looks like Google’s home page but is in Chinese and has a combination logo of Google and Baidu:
The GoogleBaidu.com domain was also nicely indexed in Google’s search engine:
It makes sense that Google won this domain name in the arbitration proceeding. Still, it puts Google in the interesting position of owning a domain name that includes one of its main rival’s trademarks.
I’ll also give Google credit for not messing with its search results and taking care of the problem the correct way.
DomainersChoice.com says
Google is one of the major sharehoolders of Baidu.