Original Story: nytimes.com
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has sought China’s help in recent days in blocking North Korea’s ability to launch cyberattacks, the first steps toward the “proportional response” President Obama vowed to make the North pay for the assault on Sony Pictures — and as part of a campaign to issue a broader warning against future hacking, according to senior administration officials.
“What we are looking for is a blocking action, something that would cripple their efforts to carry out attacks,” one official said.
So far, the Chinese have not responded. Their cooperation would be critical, since virtually all of North Korea’s telecommunications run through Chinese-operated networks.
It is unclear that China would choose to help, given tensions over computer security between Washington and Beijing since the Justice Department in May indicted five hackers working for the Chinese military on charges of stealing sensitive information from American companies.
The secret approach to China comes as American officials, convening a half-dozen meetings in the White House Situation Room last week, including one of the top national security team on Thursday night, have been developing options to give to the president during his vacation in Hawaii. They include new economic sanctions, mirroring those recently placed on Russian oligarchs and officials close to President Vladimir V. Putin, which would cut off their access to cash — the one perk that allows the elite surrounding Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, to live lifestyles their starving countrymen can barely imagine.
The sessions also included discussions of “information operations” directed at the North Korean people, officials said, but similar efforts by South Korea to sway opinion in the North have often created a furious backlash.
As part of the administration effort to plan a response to the first major, state-sponsored destructive computer-network attacks on American soil, the president has asked the military’s Cyber Command, which is led by the same four-star admiral who directs the National Security Agency, to come up with a range of offensive options that could be directed at North Korea.
For now, the White House appears to have declined to consider what one Defense Department official termed “a demonstration strike” in cyberspace, which could have included targets such as North Korean military facilities, computer network servers and communications networks.
One obvious potential target is Yongbyon, the center of North Korea’s nuclear program, where the state has invested huge sums to produce plutonium and uranium fuel for its small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Because of its geographic and technological isolation, Yongbyon is considered a far harder target to attack than were Iran’s nuclear facilities, the subject of an American cyberoperation code-named Olympic Games.
The administration’s restraint grows out of a concern over the risk of escalation with North Korea, since the United States has far more vulnerable targets, from its power grid to its financial markets, than North Korea.
“There are a lot of constraints on us, because we live in a giant glass house,” said one official involved in the high-level debates. The official said the challenge was to find a mix of actions that “the North Koreans will notice” but that will not be so public that Mr. Kim’s government loses face and feels compelled to respond.
Several administration officials said the White House woke up late to the growing confrontation with North Korea, with senior officials not realizing at first the scope and long-term implications of the attacks on Sony for its plans for a Christmas Day release of “The Interview,” a crude comedy built around a far-fetched C.I.A. plot to have two bumbling journalists assassinate the young North Korean leader. But by last week, the combination of the destructive attack on Sony’s computers and the threat of attacks on moviegoers at any theater that showed the film sent the administration scrambling for a response.
In interviews over the past two days, officials said the president’s decision was to have the United States directly accuse the North Korean government — a public naming of the perpetrators that went beyond previous American criticism. Then the president, in his year-end news conference, cast Mr. Kim as an insecure leader so weak that he could be provoked by an outlandish satire, even while Mr. Obama castigated Sony Pictures for giving in to intimidation by withdrawing the film.
The attacks on Sony appear to have been routed through China and then conducted through servers in Singapore, Thailand and Bolivia. Each of the countries, officials said, had been contacted in an effort to cut off access for the hackers.
But the key is China. United States officials said that American efforts to block North Korea’s access to the Internet, which is available only to the military and the elite, would necessarily impinge on Chinese sovereignty. But they also saw in the confrontation a chance to work with the Chinese on a subject the two countries have been warily discussing for several years: Establishing “rules of the road” for acceptable behavior in cyberspace.
By some accounts, what the administration is trying to create is a computer equivalent to the Proliferation Security Initiative, an effort begun in the Bush administration, also aimed squarely at North Korea, to stop the shipment of nuclear materials and other weaponry. But in cyberspace that is a far harder task, since it is easier for the North Koreans to reroute computer code at lightning speed than to reroute a cargo ship carrying missiles.
Any financial sanctions also are tricky. The North is under perhaps the heaviest sanctions on earth. Yet the one sanction in the past decade that caused the most pain to the North Korean leadership was the freezing of its accounts at a small bank in Macau, which held the money the North Korean leadership uses to buy luxury goods — and serves as an escape route if officials need to leave the country.
Even if Mr. Obama was ready to respond with a cyberattack, it would not be instantaneous.
“One of the things people often overlook is the complexity and time it takes to launch an attack,” said Oren Falkowitz, a former analyst at the National Security Agency who now runs Area 1, a security company based in Menlo Park, Calif. “Most attacks take hundreds of days, if not years, to plan. People often want to move quickly, but they forget a lot of legwork must be done.”
In the past, other countries have resorted to basic distributed denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers flood a target’s systems with Internet traffic until they collapse under the load. But unlike systems in the United States, very little of North Korea’s network infrastructure is connected to the global Internet. The result, Mr. Falkowitz says, is that a similar denial-of-service attack on the North would amount to “ankle biting.”
Tom Kellermann, a former member of the presidential commission on cybersecurity, said one option was what security experts refer to as a “hack back,” in which they use the attackers’ own computer footprints and back doors to deploy an attack that destroys North Korea’s attack infrastructure, or compromises the integrity of the machines that did the hacking. For example, the United States could deploy a malicious payload that encrypts the data on North Korea’s machines, or renders them unable to reboot — clearly “proportional,” in the president’s words, because that was what happened to Sony’s computers.
But attack tools can be swapped out, and by destroying attackers’ systems, the United States would lose its ability to monitor them for future attacks.
Mr. Kellermann predicted a campaign of information warfare, in which the United States plays on North Korea’s worst fears by using its access to the North Korean domestic computer and radio systems to deploy propaganda inside North Korea’s closed media bubble.
SEO Blog. Organic SEO Blog. Search Marketing News. SEO Done Right examines search engine optimization, the most effective form of internet marketing. Breaking SEO news and emerging developments at Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Leading Organic SEO Consultants Peak Positions debunk the many myths, hype, and spin related to SEO and search marketing.
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Showing posts with label china. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
U.S. POSTAL SERVICE HACKED, TOLD CONGRESS OCT. 22
Original Story: usatoday.com
In classified briefings Oct. 22 and Nov. 7, the U.S. Postal Service told members of Congress that it had been hacked.
The service made the information public Monday.
The Washington Post reported China may have been involved in the cyberattack, citing anonymous sources. USA TODAY was unable to confirm the report.
Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan told USA TODAY the "issue is still under investigation."
In its statement, the post office said some USPS computers were hacked and some employee information was compromised.
Information about people who called in to the post office's Customer Care center was also compromised.
The service's customer website, usps.com, was not affected, the statement said.
"The intrusion is limited in scope, and all operations of the Postal Service are functioning normally," said David Partenheimer, media relations manager for the U.S. Postal Service.
In a letter sent Monday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., cited the classified briefings, which were made to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He asked for more information from Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe.
Cummings asked for a description of the cyberattack and how it was first discovered, as well as what actions Donahoe took after learning about it.
The post office is investigating the incident. The investigation is being led by the FBI and other federal and postal investigatory agencies.
Employee information that might have been compromised included personally identifiable information about employees, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment, emergency contact information and other information.
Roughly 800,000 employees were affected by the intrusion, the service said.
If indeed China is behind the attack, it's likely part of an attempt to gain more information about U.S. government, said Edward Ferrara, an analyst with Forrester, a technology research company.
Employee data is also very helpful for future attacks.
"If a relatively high-level employee at the post office starts sending out phishing attacks from a .gov address, it's a possible stepping stone for attacks to get information of more value elsewhere," Ferrara said.
Cash registers and point-of-sale terminals in post offices, as well as the website usps.com where customers pay for services with credit and debit cards, were not touched by the incident.
There is no evidence any customer credit card information from retail or online purchases such as Click-N-Ship, the Postal Store, PostalOne!, change of address or other services was compromised, the service said.
Also possibly affected were call center data for customers who contacted the service's Customer Care Center by telephone or e-mail between Jan. 1, 2014, and Aug. 16, 2014, Partenheimer said.
According to the Postal Service's website, the Customer Care Center handled 83 million inquiries in 2013.
The compromised data consist of names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other information for customers who gave the information when they called or e-mailed in.
The service said that it does not believe potentially affected customers need to take any action as a result of the incident.
"We began communicating this morning with our employees about this incident, apologized to them for it, and have let them know that we will be providing them with credit monitoring services for one year at no charge to them," Partenheimer said.
In classified briefings Oct. 22 and Nov. 7, the U.S. Postal Service told members of Congress that it had been hacked.
The service made the information public Monday.
The Washington Post reported China may have been involved in the cyberattack, citing anonymous sources. USA TODAY was unable to confirm the report.
Postal Service spokeswoman Sue Brennan told USA TODAY the "issue is still under investigation."
In its statement, the post office said some USPS computers were hacked and some employee information was compromised.
Information about people who called in to the post office's Customer Care center was also compromised.
The service's customer website, usps.com, was not affected, the statement said.
"The intrusion is limited in scope, and all operations of the Postal Service are functioning normally," said David Partenheimer, media relations manager for the U.S. Postal Service.
In a letter sent Monday, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., cited the classified briefings, which were made to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He asked for more information from Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe.
Cummings asked for a description of the cyberattack and how it was first discovered, as well as what actions Donahoe took after learning about it.
The post office is investigating the incident. The investigation is being led by the FBI and other federal and postal investigatory agencies.
Employee information that might have been compromised included personally identifiable information about employees, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment, emergency contact information and other information.
Roughly 800,000 employees were affected by the intrusion, the service said.
If indeed China is behind the attack, it's likely part of an attempt to gain more information about U.S. government, said Edward Ferrara, an analyst with Forrester, a technology research company.
Employee data is also very helpful for future attacks.
"If a relatively high-level employee at the post office starts sending out phishing attacks from a .gov address, it's a possible stepping stone for attacks to get information of more value elsewhere," Ferrara said.
Cash registers and point-of-sale terminals in post offices, as well as the website usps.com where customers pay for services with credit and debit cards, were not touched by the incident.
There is no evidence any customer credit card information from retail or online purchases such as Click-N-Ship, the Postal Store, PostalOne!, change of address or other services was compromised, the service said.
Also possibly affected were call center data for customers who contacted the service's Customer Care Center by telephone or e-mail between Jan. 1, 2014, and Aug. 16, 2014, Partenheimer said.
According to the Postal Service's website, the Customer Care Center handled 83 million inquiries in 2013.
The compromised data consist of names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and other information for customers who gave the information when they called or e-mailed in.
The service said that it does not believe potentially affected customers need to take any action as a result of the incident.
"We began communicating this morning with our employees about this incident, apologized to them for it, and have let them know that we will be providing them with credit monitoring services for one year at no charge to them," Partenheimer said.
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
TO REACH CHINA, LINKEDIN PLAYS BY LOCAL RULES
Original Story: nytimes.com
HONG KONG — For American technology companies from Microsoft to Facebook to Google, China is a difficult, even impossible, place to operate.
But one company, the social network LinkedIn, has found a way to do business — by being willing to compromise on the free expression that is the backbone of life on the Western Internet.
LinkedIn’s experience provides a blueprint, and perhaps a cautionary lesson, for Silicon Valley as it tries to crack the vast Chinese market. Other American tech companies are watching with great interest, wondering whether LinkedIn will find an equilibrium between free speech and Chinese law that it can live with.
“Over the next five years, things will continue to progress in a positive fashion over there, so it’s important to be there today,” said Kerry Rice, an Internet analyst at Needham, a brokerage firm. “If LinkedIn figures out how to navigate the operating environment in China, clearly other companies will try to imitate that.”
LinkedIn’s global English-language site has attracted four million Chinese members without gaining much attention from the Chinese government. But the company wanted to reach more of China’s estimated 140 million professional workers, and so in February it introduced a Chinese-language version.
The Chinese-language site has attracted about a million new members and seems to have the tacit approval of the government. It is functioning without blockages even though the authorities have cracked down on other Internet services, including Instagram and Yahoo, in reaction to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The secret to LinkedIn’s seeming success? Aside from its willingness to play by Chinese rules on expression, the company has relinquished 7 percent of its local operation to two well-connected Chinese venture capital firms. Having such a relationship with homegrown firms is crucial for foreign web companies seeking to operate in China, experts say.
“The government needs to know who they can call, and as a foreign company you need to know before your site gets shut down so you have a chance to do something about it,” said Duncan Clark, founder of BDA China, a consulting firm that advises foreign companies on China’s tech sector. “That’s worth a lot, to have that channel.”
A spokesman for LinkedIn, Hani Durzy, said the company opened a Chinese-language site because of its “belief that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on the lives of Chinese individuals, much as it has elsewhere in the world.”
“While we strongly support freedom of expression,” he added, “we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China. So the decision to proceed in China was one that we weighed heavily.”
On the Chinese- and English-language sites in China, the company censors content that the authorities consider politically sensitive, using a combination of software algorithms and human reviewers. People whose posts are blocked get an emailed form letter advising them that a posted item contains “content prohibited in China” and “will not be seen by LinkedIn members located in China.”
LinkedIn also does not provide Chinese-language users certain important tools — like the ability to create or join groups or to post long essays — that allow people elsewhere to have public discussions and form communities.
Although LinkedIn’s strategy has given it access to Chinese speakers, analysts say it poses risks for the company’s reputation and growth strategy.
Like many American tech companies, LinkedIn, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has promoted itself as dedicated to free-market principles. Too much censorship could cause users to flee.
What’s more, if LinkedIn’s business grows larger in China, that could give the government more leverage to make demands about what type of content is permissible globally.
The company has already stumbled a bit in its entry into the Chinese market. It angered some non-Chinese customers, who found that posts they made in English while in China were blocked globally as part of the company’s effort to protect its Chinese users from anything that could attract unwanted government scrutiny. LinkedIn moved to loosen its policy last month, allowing posts blocked in China to be seen elsewhere.
Some also say LinkedIn has not communicated clearly how and why it is censoring content.
For example, Bill Bishop, a media commentator and tech investor in China, said content he posted about China from a connection in the United States was blocked by the service. When he inquired why, the company inaccurately responded that it was because he had posted the item from China, when the real problem was that he had listed China as his work location.
Other tech companies have weighed the risks of trying to satisfy the Chinese government and taken a different approach.
Google, which once acceded to China’s demands to censor content in the country, noisily reversed course in 2010, moving to deliver uncensored results to Chinese users from servers in Hong Kong and souring its relationship with the authorities to this day.
Twitter has been blocked in China for years and says it will not censor posts because to do so would “sacrifice the principles of the platform,” according to Colin Crowell, the company’s vice president for global public policy.
Vine, a short-video service owned by Twitter, operates freely in China without “any special arrangement,” Mr. Crowell said.
Although Facebook — the world’s largest social network, with about 1.3 billion monthly users worldwide — is blocked in China, it hasn’t given up on getting in the country. But it is trying to use commerce to pry open the door, selling ads to Chinese companies and government organizations that want to reach consumers outside China.
Facebook is also studying the experience of Instagram, its separately operated photo-sharing app, which is growing quickly with only occasional blockages by the Chinese government.
“We think this is an exciting opportunity,” Dan Neary, the company’s vice president for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.
Analysts say LinkedIn is well positioned to be acceptable to Beijing because it can argue that it makes the employment market more efficient, ultimately spurring the economy. China’s Internet regulators often argue that the main goal of development of the Internet should be to bolster economic growth.
China’s closed markets have given a huge head start to four homegrown companies, which dominate the Internet there: Alibaba in e-commerce, Baidu in search, Tencent in video gaming and instant messaging and Sina in social networking.
LinkedIn itself faces competition from local rivals like Zhaopin and 51Jobs.com, which both have more users than it does in China.
LinkedIn’s partnership with two local players — China Broadband Capital and a Chinese affiliate of Sequoia Capital, an American venture capital firm — has helped it manage its relationship with government officials.
C.B.C. was founded by Edward Tian, a well-connected investor and former entrepreneur who once ran a telecommunications company with the son of a former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin. The company has helped bring at least one other Silicon Valley company, Evernote, into China.
“There have been a lot of problems with companies like Facebook and Twitter,” said Kevin Wang, a C.B.C. spokesman. “We think one of the key reasons is the lack of communication, even the absence of communication, between these companies and the Chinese government.”
The local partners have a strong incentive to help LinkedIn succeed. Under the partnership agreement, they can buy an additional 21 percent of the joint venture for $20 million if certain conditions are met.
LinkedIn does retain control of the venture, securing the bulk of the profit as well as the risk.
Under Chinese law, the joint venture will eventually need to obtain an Internet content provider’s license to keep operating. The license has some benefits, but also some downsides; once granted, the company will be required to store information about its Chinese users in China.
Doing so would make it much easier for the government to demand information on, say, dissidents who use the service — a conundrum that tripped up Yahoo nearly a decade ago and prompted that company to essentially pull out of the country.
Despite the challenges, LinkedIn is optimistic about its efforts in China.
“In the end, the most important consideration for us was providing an opportunity for millions of Chinese professionals to significantly expand their economic opportunities,” said Mr. Durzy, the LinkedIn spokesman. “We want to get it right in China, so we will continue to listen and learn."
HONG KONG — For American technology companies from Microsoft to Facebook to Google, China is a difficult, even impossible, place to operate.
But one company, the social network LinkedIn, has found a way to do business — by being willing to compromise on the free expression that is the backbone of life on the Western Internet.
LinkedIn’s experience provides a blueprint, and perhaps a cautionary lesson, for Silicon Valley as it tries to crack the vast Chinese market. Other American tech companies are watching with great interest, wondering whether LinkedIn will find an equilibrium between free speech and Chinese law that it can live with.
“Over the next five years, things will continue to progress in a positive fashion over there, so it’s important to be there today,” said Kerry Rice, an Internet analyst at Needham, a brokerage firm. “If LinkedIn figures out how to navigate the operating environment in China, clearly other companies will try to imitate that.”
LinkedIn’s global English-language site has attracted four million Chinese members without gaining much attention from the Chinese government. But the company wanted to reach more of China’s estimated 140 million professional workers, and so in February it introduced a Chinese-language version.
The Chinese-language site has attracted about a million new members and seems to have the tacit approval of the government. It is functioning without blockages even though the authorities have cracked down on other Internet services, including Instagram and Yahoo, in reaction to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.
The secret to LinkedIn’s seeming success? Aside from its willingness to play by Chinese rules on expression, the company has relinquished 7 percent of its local operation to two well-connected Chinese venture capital firms. Having such a relationship with homegrown firms is crucial for foreign web companies seeking to operate in China, experts say.
“The government needs to know who they can call, and as a foreign company you need to know before your site gets shut down so you have a chance to do something about it,” said Duncan Clark, founder of BDA China, a consulting firm that advises foreign companies on China’s tech sector. “That’s worth a lot, to have that channel.”
A spokesman for LinkedIn, Hani Durzy, said the company opened a Chinese-language site because of its “belief that the creation of economic opportunity can have a profound impact on the lives of Chinese individuals, much as it has elsewhere in the world.”
“While we strongly support freedom of expression,” he added, “we recognized when we launched that we would need to adhere to the requirements of the Chinese government in order to operate in China. So the decision to proceed in China was one that we weighed heavily.”
On the Chinese- and English-language sites in China, the company censors content that the authorities consider politically sensitive, using a combination of software algorithms and human reviewers. People whose posts are blocked get an emailed form letter advising them that a posted item contains “content prohibited in China” and “will not be seen by LinkedIn members located in China.”
LinkedIn also does not provide Chinese-language users certain important tools — like the ability to create or join groups or to post long essays — that allow people elsewhere to have public discussions and form communities.
Although LinkedIn’s strategy has given it access to Chinese speakers, analysts say it poses risks for the company’s reputation and growth strategy.
Like many American tech companies, LinkedIn, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., has promoted itself as dedicated to free-market principles. Too much censorship could cause users to flee.
What’s more, if LinkedIn’s business grows larger in China, that could give the government more leverage to make demands about what type of content is permissible globally.
The company has already stumbled a bit in its entry into the Chinese market. It angered some non-Chinese customers, who found that posts they made in English while in China were blocked globally as part of the company’s effort to protect its Chinese users from anything that could attract unwanted government scrutiny. LinkedIn moved to loosen its policy last month, allowing posts blocked in China to be seen elsewhere.
Some also say LinkedIn has not communicated clearly how and why it is censoring content.
For example, Bill Bishop, a media commentator and tech investor in China, said content he posted about China from a connection in the United States was blocked by the service. When he inquired why, the company inaccurately responded that it was because he had posted the item from China, when the real problem was that he had listed China as his work location.
Other tech companies have weighed the risks of trying to satisfy the Chinese government and taken a different approach.
Google, which once acceded to China’s demands to censor content in the country, noisily reversed course in 2010, moving to deliver uncensored results to Chinese users from servers in Hong Kong and souring its relationship with the authorities to this day.
Twitter has been blocked in China for years and says it will not censor posts because to do so would “sacrifice the principles of the platform,” according to Colin Crowell, the company’s vice president for global public policy.
Vine, a short-video service owned by Twitter, operates freely in China without “any special arrangement,” Mr. Crowell said.
Although Facebook — the world’s largest social network, with about 1.3 billion monthly users worldwide — is blocked in China, it hasn’t given up on getting in the country. But it is trying to use commerce to pry open the door, selling ads to Chinese companies and government organizations that want to reach consumers outside China.
Facebook is also studying the experience of Instagram, its separately operated photo-sharing app, which is growing quickly with only occasional blockages by the Chinese government.
“We think this is an exciting opportunity,” Dan Neary, the company’s vice president for Asia and the Pacific, said in a statement.
Analysts say LinkedIn is well positioned to be acceptable to Beijing because it can argue that it makes the employment market more efficient, ultimately spurring the economy. China’s Internet regulators often argue that the main goal of development of the Internet should be to bolster economic growth.
China’s closed markets have given a huge head start to four homegrown companies, which dominate the Internet there: Alibaba in e-commerce, Baidu in search, Tencent in video gaming and instant messaging and Sina in social networking.
LinkedIn itself faces competition from local rivals like Zhaopin and 51Jobs.com, which both have more users than it does in China.
LinkedIn’s partnership with two local players — China Broadband Capital and a Chinese affiliate of Sequoia Capital, an American venture capital firm — has helped it manage its relationship with government officials.
C.B.C. was founded by Edward Tian, a well-connected investor and former entrepreneur who once ran a telecommunications company with the son of a former Chinese president, Jiang Zemin. The company has helped bring at least one other Silicon Valley company, Evernote, into China.
“There have been a lot of problems with companies like Facebook and Twitter,” said Kevin Wang, a C.B.C. spokesman. “We think one of the key reasons is the lack of communication, even the absence of communication, between these companies and the Chinese government.”
The local partners have a strong incentive to help LinkedIn succeed. Under the partnership agreement, they can buy an additional 21 percent of the joint venture for $20 million if certain conditions are met.
LinkedIn does retain control of the venture, securing the bulk of the profit as well as the risk.
Under Chinese law, the joint venture will eventually need to obtain an Internet content provider’s license to keep operating. The license has some benefits, but also some downsides; once granted, the company will be required to store information about its Chinese users in China.
Doing so would make it much easier for the government to demand information on, say, dissidents who use the service — a conundrum that tripped up Yahoo nearly a decade ago and prompted that company to essentially pull out of the country.
Despite the challenges, LinkedIn is optimistic about its efforts in China.
“In the end, the most important consideration for us was providing an opportunity for millions of Chinese professionals to significantly expand their economic opportunities,” said Mr. Durzy, the LinkedIn spokesman. “We want to get it right in China, so we will continue to listen and learn."
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Qihoo Outapcing Baidu in China Internet Race
originally appeared in Bloomberg News:
Qihoo 360 Technology Co. (QIHU), the Chinese Internet company that started offering a search engine in August, is overtaking rival Baidu Inc. (BIDU) in the stock market on prospects the newcomer will boost its share in the industry.
American depositary receipts of Qihoo jumped 5.9 percent last week to trade at 35 times estimated earnings, double the valuation of Baidu, and reversing a discount of as much as 50 percent in January. Baidu, owner of China’s most-used search engine, rose 1.3 percent last week in New York, sending valuations to 17 times profits. Qihoo’s gain helped the Bloomberg China-US Equity Index (CH55BN) of the most-traded Chinese shares in New York rise for a third week.
Qihoo’s site -- so.com, which means search in Chinese --has cornered more than 9 percent of the search market since its Aug. 16 debut, compared with Baidu’s stake of about 60 percent, according to October data from New York-based Internet-tracking firm Experian Hitwise. Qihoo will extend its rally on expectations the Beijing-based company will post faster sales growth than Baidu this year as well as in 2013, Oberweis Asset Management Inc. said.
If a small upstart takes a little bit of market share from the industry leader, it may not be a big deal for Baidu but it’s material for Qihoo, according to a fund manager who oversees $700 million, including shares of Qihoo and Baidu, at Oberweis said by phone from Lisle, Illinois, on Dec. 20. Qihoo probably has the more aggressive opportunity to hit much higher growth rates if they are successful in executing their strategies.
Sales Forecast
Qihoo, whose fourth-quarter sales projection given in November beat the median of six analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, has soared 69 percent this year. Beijing-based Baidu, down 15 percent in 2012, is forecasting the slowest revenue growth since 2009 this quarter. Analysts also forecast a 67 percent jump in Qihoo’s net income next year, compared with a 26 percent increase for Baidu, Bloomberg data show.
Qihoo develops anti-virus computer software and desktop applications that include its web browser, the most popular in China with 303 million users as of September. Searches derived from Qihoo browser’s personal start-up page have contributed 11 percent to its total query traffic last month, Hitwise data show, the most among Chinese companies with similar services.
Qihoo’s search engine ranks second after Baidu’s and its market share exceeds that of Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s largest Internet company by market, and Sohu.com Inc.
Initial Growth
Qihoo is still gaining market share and, as a new entrant, initial growth should be strong, according to a senior analyst at Maxim Group LLC who recommends buying Qihu’s stock and selling Baidu, said by phone from New York on Dec. 21. Baidu is facing lower margins on a permanent basis. Qihoo is facing lower margins because it’s investing in the search markets, and that’s temporary.
The iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund, the biggest Chinese exchange-traded fund in the U.S., declined 1.3 percent on Dec. 21 to $39.24 for a weekly loss of 0.3 percent. The ETF has risen 13 percent this year. The Bloomberg China-U.S. index retreated 1.3 percent on Dec. 21 to 96.42, paring the measure’s gain this year to 7 percent.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.9 percent to 1,430.15 after House Republican leaders canceled a vote on higher taxes for top earners, causing a standstill in the U.S. budget talks.
We’re seeing some good engines coming from emerging markets, but it all depends on what happens in the U.S., according to an analyst who helps oversee $426 billion at HSBC Global Asset Management, said by phone from New York on Dec. 21. If the U.S. went into recession in 2013, it’s likely to become a very big drag on exports from China.
E-House Plunges
E-House China Holdings Ltd., a real estate brokerage based in Shanghai, was the worst performer on the gauge last week, losing 15 percent. Its ADRs sank 13 percent to $3.64 on Dec. 21, the biggest one-day slump since 2009. SouFun Holdings Ltd., the Beijing-based owner of the largest real estate information website in China, dropped 2.2 percent on Dec. 21, trimming its gain last week to 6.1 percent.
China won’t rule out the possibility of introducing new housing curbs after the property market rebounded in November and some regions saw “irrational exuberance,” China Securities Journal reported on Dec. 21, citing an unidentified person in the industry.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slid 0.7 percent to 11,229.09 last week. The gauge has climbed 13 percent in 2012. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.7 percent to 2,153.31 from the highest level in four months, bringing its loss this year to 2.1 percent.
Qihoo 360 Technology Co. (QIHU), the Chinese Internet company that started offering a search engine in August, is overtaking rival Baidu Inc. (BIDU) in the stock market on prospects the newcomer will boost its share in the industry.
American depositary receipts of Qihoo jumped 5.9 percent last week to trade at 35 times estimated earnings, double the valuation of Baidu, and reversing a discount of as much as 50 percent in January. Baidu, owner of China’s most-used search engine, rose 1.3 percent last week in New York, sending valuations to 17 times profits. Qihoo’s gain helped the Bloomberg China-US Equity Index (CH55BN) of the most-traded Chinese shares in New York rise for a third week.
Qihoo’s site -- so.com, which means search in Chinese --has cornered more than 9 percent of the search market since its Aug. 16 debut, compared with Baidu’s stake of about 60 percent, according to October data from New York-based Internet-tracking firm Experian Hitwise. Qihoo will extend its rally on expectations the Beijing-based company will post faster sales growth than Baidu this year as well as in 2013, Oberweis Asset Management Inc. said.
If a small upstart takes a little bit of market share from the industry leader, it may not be a big deal for Baidu but it’s material for Qihoo, according to a fund manager who oversees $700 million, including shares of Qihoo and Baidu, at Oberweis said by phone from Lisle, Illinois, on Dec. 20. Qihoo probably has the more aggressive opportunity to hit much higher growth rates if they are successful in executing their strategies.
Sales Forecast
Qihoo, whose fourth-quarter sales projection given in November beat the median of six analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, has soared 69 percent this year. Beijing-based Baidu, down 15 percent in 2012, is forecasting the slowest revenue growth since 2009 this quarter. Analysts also forecast a 67 percent jump in Qihoo’s net income next year, compared with a 26 percent increase for Baidu, Bloomberg data show.
Qihoo develops anti-virus computer software and desktop applications that include its web browser, the most popular in China with 303 million users as of September. Searches derived from Qihoo browser’s personal start-up page have contributed 11 percent to its total query traffic last month, Hitwise data show, the most among Chinese companies with similar services.
Qihoo’s search engine ranks second after Baidu’s and its market share exceeds that of Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s largest Internet company by market, and Sohu.com Inc.
Initial Growth
Qihoo is still gaining market share and, as a new entrant, initial growth should be strong, according to a senior analyst at Maxim Group LLC who recommends buying Qihu’s stock and selling Baidu, said by phone from New York on Dec. 21. Baidu is facing lower margins on a permanent basis. Qihoo is facing lower margins because it’s investing in the search markets, and that’s temporary.
The iShares FTSE China 25 Index Fund, the biggest Chinese exchange-traded fund in the U.S., declined 1.3 percent on Dec. 21 to $39.24 for a weekly loss of 0.3 percent. The ETF has risen 13 percent this year. The Bloomberg China-U.S. index retreated 1.3 percent on Dec. 21 to 96.42, paring the measure’s gain this year to 7 percent.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 0.9 percent to 1,430.15 after House Republican leaders canceled a vote on higher taxes for top earners, causing a standstill in the U.S. budget talks.
We’re seeing some good engines coming from emerging markets, but it all depends on what happens in the U.S., according to an analyst who helps oversee $426 billion at HSBC Global Asset Management, said by phone from New York on Dec. 21. If the U.S. went into recession in 2013, it’s likely to become a very big drag on exports from China.
E-House Plunges
E-House China Holdings Ltd., a real estate brokerage based in Shanghai, was the worst performer on the gauge last week, losing 15 percent. Its ADRs sank 13 percent to $3.64 on Dec. 21, the biggest one-day slump since 2009. SouFun Holdings Ltd., the Beijing-based owner of the largest real estate information website in China, dropped 2.2 percent on Dec. 21, trimming its gain last week to 6.1 percent.
China won’t rule out the possibility of introducing new housing curbs after the property market rebounded in November and some regions saw “irrational exuberance,” China Securities Journal reported on Dec. 21, citing an unidentified person in the industry.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slid 0.7 percent to 11,229.09 last week. The gauge has climbed 13 percent in 2012. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.7 percent to 2,153.31 from the highest level in four months, bringing its loss this year to 2.1 percent.
Monday, August 06, 2012
Baidu Fires 4 Employees for Deleting Content in Exchange for Money
Story first reported from foxbusiness.com
Baidu Inc. (BIDU) said on Monday it has fired four employees suspected of having taken payments to delete posts from its website.
Baidu spokeswoman Betty Tian confirmed in an email to Dow Jones Newswires on Monday that three employees had been arrested by the police due to the large amounts of money that had been transferred in exchange for the deletions. She didn't elaborate on why only three of the employees had been arrested.
The emailed statement follows local media reports that Baidu has fired several employees over payments in return for deleting content.
"Baidu has always firmly cracked down on the illegal behavior of online posts deletion for payment," the Ms. Tian wrote in an email.
Baidu said that illegal deletion of online posts remains a major problem in China, and that it would proactively report illegal activity to the authorities. It is common for individuals or companies to pay money to have controversial or negative posts deleted from websites and blogs, according to Chinese media reports.
Baidu said that it maintains a record of original posts and of deletions made by employees, and verifies the records later.
Baidu Inc. (BIDU) said on Monday it has fired four employees suspected of having taken payments to delete posts from its website.
Baidu spokeswoman Betty Tian confirmed in an email to Dow Jones Newswires on Monday that three employees had been arrested by the police due to the large amounts of money that had been transferred in exchange for the deletions. She didn't elaborate on why only three of the employees had been arrested.
The emailed statement follows local media reports that Baidu has fired several employees over payments in return for deleting content.
"Baidu has always firmly cracked down on the illegal behavior of online posts deletion for payment," the Ms. Tian wrote in an email.
Baidu said that illegal deletion of online posts remains a major problem in China, and that it would proactively report illegal activity to the authorities. It is common for individuals or companies to pay money to have controversial or negative posts deleted from websites and blogs, according to Chinese media reports.
Baidu said that it maintains a record of original posts and of deletions made by employees, and verifies the records later.
For more national and
worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For more local and
state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan
Business News blog.
For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical
News blog.
For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics
America blog.
For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and
Residential Real Estate blog.
For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising,
Marketing and Media blog.
For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental
Responsibility News blog.
Friday, July 27, 2012
10,000 Arrested in China Internet Crackdown
Story first reported from USA Today
Chinese authorities say they have arrested more than 10,000 suspects and smashed more than 600 gangs during a four-month crackdown on Internet crimes, according to news reports.
At the same time, Beijing police are threatening to punish any online "political rumor" or "attack" on Communist Party leaders, the system or the country, raising fears of tighter controls on speech on the country's 538 million Internet users.
The Ministry of Public Security said "major crimes uncovered" during the nationwide operation since May include pornographic information, gun trading, wiretapping devices, counterfeiting, as well as illegally collecting and selling citizens' personal information, the official Xinhua News Agency writes.
The cyber-police have also deleted 3.2 million messages deemed "harmful," closed hundreds of Internet cafes and punished 30 service providers for granting access to unlicensed sites, the BBC says.
Additionally, 62 websites and online forums were ordered to remove "inappropriate content."
In southern China, police reported detaining "a gang of hackers" believed responsible for attacks on 185 government websites, the state-run China Daily newspaper says.
The warning from Beijing's Public Security Bureau about Internet comments came Tuesday during a meeting about protecting minors online, the Global Times reports.
In May, a BBC article asked, "Will China's Great Firewall backfire?"
China's crackdown comes as the U.S. Congress is considering new cybersecurity legislation.
The Senate voted today to begin debating and amending the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which is intended to bolster cyber-defenses against attacks on communications systems and infrastructure.
The measure "calls for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assess risks and vulnerabilities of computer systems running at critical infrastructure sites such as power companies and electricity and water utilities and to work with the operators to develop security standards that they would be required to meet," Cnet wrote when the legislation was introduced in February.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says the Cybersecurity Act "poses serious threats to online rights."
The House approved a similar bill in April -- the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act -- despite a threatened White House veto. The measure encourages but does not require companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to prevent against online attacks.
Chinese authorities say they have arrested more than 10,000 suspects and smashed more than 600 gangs during a four-month crackdown on Internet crimes, according to news reports.
At the same time, Beijing police are threatening to punish any online "political rumor" or "attack" on Communist Party leaders, the system or the country, raising fears of tighter controls on speech on the country's 538 million Internet users.
The Ministry of Public Security said "major crimes uncovered" during the nationwide operation since May include pornographic information, gun trading, wiretapping devices, counterfeiting, as well as illegally collecting and selling citizens' personal information, the official Xinhua News Agency writes.
The cyber-police have also deleted 3.2 million messages deemed "harmful," closed hundreds of Internet cafes and punished 30 service providers for granting access to unlicensed sites, the BBC says.
Additionally, 62 websites and online forums were ordered to remove "inappropriate content."
In southern China, police reported detaining "a gang of hackers" believed responsible for attacks on 185 government websites, the state-run China Daily newspaper says.
The warning from Beijing's Public Security Bureau about Internet comments came Tuesday during a meeting about protecting minors online, the Global Times reports.
In May, a BBC article asked, "Will China's Great Firewall backfire?"
China's crackdown comes as the U.S. Congress is considering new cybersecurity legislation.
The Senate voted today to begin debating and amending the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which is intended to bolster cyber-defenses against attacks on communications systems and infrastructure.
The measure "calls for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to assess risks and vulnerabilities of computer systems running at critical infrastructure sites such as power companies and electricity and water utilities and to work with the operators to develop security standards that they would be required to meet," Cnet wrote when the legislation was introduced in February.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says the Cybersecurity Act "poses serious threats to online rights."
The House approved a similar bill in April -- the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act -- despite a threatened White House veto. The measure encourages but does not require companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to prevent against online attacks.
For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For more Health News, visit the Healthcare and Medical News blog.
For more Electronics News, visit the Electronics America blog.
For more Real Estate News, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For more Law News, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more Advertising News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.
For more Environmental News, visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.
For information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Google App Store Censored in China
Story first appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek.
Google Inc.'s Android operating system runs two-thirds of the smartphones sold in China yet the company’s online app store, Google Play, isn’t open for business there because of censorship concerns. That’s creating an opportunity for China Mobile Ltd.
The world’s biggest phone company by subscribers opened its Mobile Market store for Android apps in 2009, and it now has 158 million registered users. Customers have downloaded more than 630 million apps, making Mobile Market the world’s largest carrier-operated app store.
The success of Mobile Market comes at a welcome juncture for the wireless giant, fueling revenue growth as its core business matures. China Mobile competes with Apple Inc.’s App Store in a nation where Analysys International said mobile applications and services are set to jump 80 percent to 220 billion yuan ($35 billion) this year as cheaper smartphones make surfing the Web more affordable.
Without having to compete with the official Google store, China Mobile has an opportunity that operators in other countries don’t have. China Mobile’s relationship with subscribers leaves it well- placed to take advantage.
The carrier’s data services business, including Mobile Market, jumped 15 percent last year to 139.3 billion yuan, compared with an 8.8 percent growth in total sales.
Facebook, Twitter
China Mobile shares fell 0.8 percent to HK$81.90 in Hong Kong trading today, trimming the gains this year to 7.9 percent.
Shipments of smartphones in China are projected to jump 52 percent this year to 137 million units, overtaking the U.S. for the first time as the world’s biggest market, according to a March estimate from market researcher IDC.
Phones running Android accounted for 68 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, while Apple’s iPhone made up 5.7 percent, according to Beijing-based Analysys International. Apple’s online store generated about $2.9 billion in global app sales last year, compared with about $618 million for Google, Kent estimated.
All Web content in China is censored, and that control extends to online stores selling apps, games and e-books. Both Mobile Market and Apple’s Chinese-language store, which takes payment in local currency, abide by government censorship restrictions and don’t offer apps to access the blocked websites of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and YouTube Inc.
Google Censorship
Google said in January 2010 it was no longer willing to self-censor content for Chinese services, so it shuttered its local search page and redirected users to a Hong Kong site. A Tokyo-based spokesman for Google, declined to comment on why Google Play was unavailable in China. The store has more than 450,000 apps and games, the company said in March.
China Mobile’s store has 68,663 apps, compared with 560,957 for Apple. Mobile Market’s offerings include Instagram Inc.’s photo-sharing and editing software, and Rovio Entertainment Oy’s Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Space.
China Mobile’s sales from applications and information services grew 12 percent to 48.4 billion yuan last year, accounting for 9.2 percent of total sales and overtaking text messages as the company’s biggest source of data revenue.
Drive Traffic
That total includes 22 billion yuan from mobile music, 1.5 billion yuan from mobile e-mail services, 627 million yuan from e-books and 571 million yuan from mobile videos, according to the company’s annual report.
Mobile Market has become the world’s largest Chinese- language application software platform.
Sales from the Mobile Market last year were about 23 million yuan, though the traffic generated by app downloads among China Mobile’s 667.2 million mobile-phone subscribers is more important to the carrier.
China Mobile is forecast to post its third straight year of sales growth after reporting revenue gains of at least 10 percent from the time of its 1997 Hong Kong listing through 2009. Sales growth may slow to 7 percent this year, according to the average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Unicom, Telecom
China Mobile isn’t the only local company looking to fill the Google gap for Android apps. Analysys International tracks 13 major app stores in China, including from carriers China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. and China Telecom Corp., and device makers including Lenovo Group Ltd.
One thing that may help China Mobile generate sales is that it offers the highest percentage of paid apps versus free apps among all stores in China. Mobile Market charges for 91 percent of its apps, while China Unicom charges for 77 percent and Apple’s for 48 percent.
Many games in China Mobile’s shop are offered in local currency prices that range from the equivalent of 50 cents to $1.50.
Google Inc.'s Android operating system runs two-thirds of the smartphones sold in China yet the company’s online app store, Google Play, isn’t open for business there because of censorship concerns. That’s creating an opportunity for China Mobile Ltd.
The world’s biggest phone company by subscribers opened its Mobile Market store for Android apps in 2009, and it now has 158 million registered users. Customers have downloaded more than 630 million apps, making Mobile Market the world’s largest carrier-operated app store.
The success of Mobile Market comes at a welcome juncture for the wireless giant, fueling revenue growth as its core business matures. China Mobile competes with Apple Inc.’s App Store in a nation where Analysys International said mobile applications and services are set to jump 80 percent to 220 billion yuan ($35 billion) this year as cheaper smartphones make surfing the Web more affordable.
Without having to compete with the official Google store, China Mobile has an opportunity that operators in other countries don’t have. China Mobile’s relationship with subscribers leaves it well- placed to take advantage.
The carrier’s data services business, including Mobile Market, jumped 15 percent last year to 139.3 billion yuan, compared with an 8.8 percent growth in total sales.
Facebook, Twitter
China Mobile shares fell 0.8 percent to HK$81.90 in Hong Kong trading today, trimming the gains this year to 7.9 percent.
Shipments of smartphones in China are projected to jump 52 percent this year to 137 million units, overtaking the U.S. for the first time as the world’s biggest market, according to a March estimate from market researcher IDC.
Phones running Android accounted for 68 percent of sales in the fourth quarter, while Apple’s iPhone made up 5.7 percent, according to Beijing-based Analysys International. Apple’s online store generated about $2.9 billion in global app sales last year, compared with about $618 million for Google, Kent estimated.
All Web content in China is censored, and that control extends to online stores selling apps, games and e-books. Both Mobile Market and Apple’s Chinese-language store, which takes payment in local currency, abide by government censorship restrictions and don’t offer apps to access the blocked websites of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and YouTube Inc.
Google Censorship
Google said in January 2010 it was no longer willing to self-censor content for Chinese services, so it shuttered its local search page and redirected users to a Hong Kong site. A Tokyo-based spokesman for Google, declined to comment on why Google Play was unavailable in China. The store has more than 450,000 apps and games, the company said in March.
China Mobile’s store has 68,663 apps, compared with 560,957 for Apple. Mobile Market’s offerings include Instagram Inc.’s photo-sharing and editing software, and Rovio Entertainment Oy’s Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Space.
China Mobile’s sales from applications and information services grew 12 percent to 48.4 billion yuan last year, accounting for 9.2 percent of total sales and overtaking text messages as the company’s biggest source of data revenue.
Drive Traffic
That total includes 22 billion yuan from mobile music, 1.5 billion yuan from mobile e-mail services, 627 million yuan from e-books and 571 million yuan from mobile videos, according to the company’s annual report.
Mobile Market has become the world’s largest Chinese- language application software platform.
Sales from the Mobile Market last year were about 23 million yuan, though the traffic generated by app downloads among China Mobile’s 667.2 million mobile-phone subscribers is more important to the carrier.
China Mobile is forecast to post its third straight year of sales growth after reporting revenue gains of at least 10 percent from the time of its 1997 Hong Kong listing through 2009. Sales growth may slow to 7 percent this year, according to the average of 31 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Unicom, Telecom
China Mobile isn’t the only local company looking to fill the Google gap for Android apps. Analysys International tracks 13 major app stores in China, including from carriers China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd. and China Telecom Corp., and device makers including Lenovo Group Ltd.
One thing that may help China Mobile generate sales is that it offers the highest percentage of paid apps versus free apps among all stores in China. Mobile Market charges for 91 percent of its apps, while China Unicom charges for 77 percent and Apple’s for 48 percent.
Many games in China Mobile’s shop are offered in local currency prices that range from the equivalent of 50 cents to $1.50.
For more information on website optimization or for the latest SEO News, visit the SEO Done Right
blog.
For more national and worldwide Business News, visit the Peak News
Room blog.
For more local and state of Michigan Business News, visit
the Michigan Business News blog.
For more Health News, visit the
Healthcare and Medical News blog.
For more Electronics
News, visit the Electronics America blog.
For more Real Estate News,
visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For more Law News,
visit the Nation of Law blog.
For more Advertising
News, visit the Advertising, Marketing and Media blog.
For more Environmental News,
visit the Environmental Responsibility News blog.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Apple Manufacturer Provides Poor Working Conditions
Story first appeared in The Detroit Free Press.
A long-awaited report on conditions at Chinese factories that make Apple products confirmed the worst: long hours, low wages and poor working conditions for employees.
A long-awaited report on conditions at Chinese factories that make Apple products confirmed the worst: long hours, low wages and poor working conditions for employees.
Apple, in response, says it will ensure that overseas employees have better working conditions.
Investigators from the Washington-based Fair Labor Association, at Apple's request, went to China to look at Foxconn Technology Group factories in Guanlan, Longhua, and Chengdu, where Apple iPads and iPhones are assembled for sale across the world. Products for other companies, including Dell, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, are made there, too.
At the Foxconn factories, the average workweek for an employee is 60 hours, which exceeds both the FLA code standard and Chinese legal limit, the month-long investigation found. Some employees worked as many as 70 hours a week in November and December 2011. However, FLA said Foxconn has agreed to remedy this by July 2013, and bring it down to the legal 49 hours, while protecting workers' pay.
Apple has come under fire recently for producing hit products overseas with low-paid workers in less-than-optimum conditions. Monthly salaries range from $360 to $455. CEO Tim Cook was in China on Wednesday visiting a new Foxconn factory, not the ones mentioned in the report.
Consumer watchdog groups say that the report is a start but that Apple must really change. Supposedly workers put in many more hours per week than is legal -- will take more than a year to change direction. Foxconn has more than 1.2 million employees.
SumofUs, along with Change.org, has received more than 250,000 signatures from consumers asking Apple to require its suppliers to treat overseas workers better.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Asian Yahoo Sales
First appeared on Yahoo! News
Yahoo appears to be getting closer to giving its frustrated shareholders something they've long wanted: a sale of the Internet company's holdings in China and Japan.
The prospect of Yahoo Inc. finally consummating a deal with China's Alibaba Group and Softbank Corp., the controlling owner of Yahoo Japan, emerged in online reports published Wednesday by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, both newspapers reported Yahoo is exploring a proposal valued at about $17 billion, or $14 per share. The price reflects Wall Street's belief that Yahoo's investments in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan have become the company's most valuable pieces. Yahoo's U.S. business has lost its luster as the company's website loses traffic and advertising revenue to Internet search leader Google Inc. and Facebook's social network.
Yahoo ended Wednesday with a market value of about $20 billion, based on its stock closing price of $15.99. The shares gained 88 cents, with most of the surge occurring after the reports of Yahoo's talks with its Asian partners.
If the deal comes together, Alibaba and Softbank would contribute cash and certain assets to newly formed entities. Yahoo would then surrender its 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan and most of its holdings in Alibaba to gain control of new entities, according to the Times.
Yahoo would retain a 15 percent stake in privately held Alibaba, down from 42 percent as of Sept. 30, according to the company's most recent quarterly report.
The transaction would be designed to avoid a big tax bill — a stumbling block in Yahoo's previous discussions to sell its Asian holdings.
Yahoo declined to comment Wednesday. Alibaba didn't respond to requests for comments.
The renewed talks among Yahoo, Alibaba and Softbank are the latest bit of boardroom intrigue that that has been unfolding since Yahoo abruptly fired Carol Bartz as CEO in early September after losing patience with her attempts to turn around the company during her 2½ years on the job.
Since then, Yahoo's board has been mulling a variety of options that have included selling the Asian holdings, selling a 20 percent stake to buyout firms or even auctioning off the whole company.
The nine-director board has been leaning in different directions as it ruminates. Just a few weeks ago, it appeared the board was leaning toward selling a large stake to a group led by Silver Lake Partners for $16.60 per share or TPG Capital for $17.60 per share.
That idea didn't go over well with some of Yahoo's major shareholders, including hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, who has been threatening to overthrow the company's board.
Yahoo's board is scheduled to discuss the proposed divestiture of the company's Asian holdings in a Thursday meeting, according to the Times. The newspaper said the directors intend to decide whether to intensify negotiations that could last for a few more weeks.
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Microsoft sees Opportunities in China after Google's Exit
International Business Times
By launching Adcenter advertising platform on Tuesday Microsoft could improve the prospects of its Bing search engine after Google pulled out of China’s mainland in March this year, said a China Daily report.Microsoft’s Adcenter facilitates pay per click advertising like Google’s AdWords.
The launch is aimed at grabbing the online advertising market share in China where companies have become cautious over going with Google, as the internet giant started redirecting all its mainland traffic to Hong Kong site.
"It's the time to join the market and let Chinese advertisers have more choices," said the report quoting Anderson Liu, general manager, MSN China.
With 32.8 percent market share by the end of 2009, Google saw a continued decline in market share to 27.3 percent in the second quarter.
Feeling the impact from its woes in China, Google snapped commercial ties with two of its 25 advertising agents in the country in July.
To cash in on the Google’s woes, Microsoft mainly aims to grab the overseas advertising from Chinese exporters by the launch of new Adcenter services, the report said. It expects revenues from these new services to contribute to half of MSN China’s business.
Advertising activity from Chinese exporters forms a major part of China's online search engine market and occupied 40 percent share in Google’s revenues, said the report quoting Analysys International.
Currently Microsoft is partnering with Baidu to sell search engine advertising and the company clarifies that the new services will not hurt their tie-up. In the second quarter, Baidu held a search engine market share of more than 70 percent in China.
"Actually I think it's a very good opportunity for MSN China," said the report quoting Edward Yu, president of Analysys International.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Media Skews Google-Beijing Debacle: China Watcher
CNBC
Reports that Google's site in China was again blocked late last week highlights how the media narrative on China "is sometimes skewed", Shaun Rein, managing director at China Market Research Group told CNBC."A lot of people criticize China's government for doing things that they're not actually doing," said Rein, and cautioned investors to "dig in deep" to "really understand what's happening in the China market."
Google caused confusion last week when it announced that its China page had been blocked by Beijing, only to admit several hours later that the inability to access the website was likely a technical glitch.
The news is the latest development in the dispute between Google and China, which started earlier this year when Google threatened to pull its operations from the mainland, after the firm took issue with Beijing's censorship of its search engine as well as cyber-terrorism it alleged was raged by Chinese government hackers. But the standoff appeared to have cooled somewhat, when China renewed Google's license in last month, after the internet giant agreed to make some changes to its Chinese website.
While the media should take some of the blame for last week's incident, Rein said, he added that China needs to get better at managing its soft power.
"They do things sometimes that confuses the rest of the world and i think that the government needs to continue to reform, make sure that they bounce internal security issues, with external soft power, because running into problems like Google is something that's only going to make China look bad."
Google caused confusion last week when it announced that its China page had been blocked by Beijing, only to admit several hours later that the inability to access the website was likely a technical glitch.
The news is the latest development in the dispute between Google and China, which started earlier this year when Google threatened to pull its operations from the mainland, after the firm took issue with Beijing's censorship of its search engine as well as cyber-terrorism it alleged was raged by Chinese government hackers. But the standoff appeared to have cooled somewhat, when China renewed Google's license in last month, after the internet giant agreed to make some changes to its Chinese website.
While the media should take some of the blame for last week's incident, Rein said, he added that China needs to get better at managing its soft power.
"They do things sometimes that confuses the rest of the world and i think that the government needs to continue to reform, make sure that they bounce internal security issues, with external soft power, because running into problems like Google is something that's only going to make China look bad."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Baidu Profit Surges as China Dispute Hampers Google
Bloomberg
Baidu Inc., operator of China’s most popular online search engine, reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as a censorship dispute with Chinese regulators hampered main rival Google Inc.
Net income for the three months ended June more than doubled to 837.4 million yuan ($123.6 million), or 2.40 yuan per American depositary receipt, Baidu said today in a statement. That exceeded the 710.4 million yuan average of 14 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In the year-earlier period, Baidu’s profit was 383.3 million yuan, or 1.10 yuan per ADR.
Baidu gained advertisers from Google after the U.S. company shut its China-based search site in March and redirected local users offshore to avoid censorship rules in the world’s biggest online market. The Beijing-based company’s stock has climbed 78 percent in U.S. trading this year, making it the best performer in the Morgan Stanley Internet Index.
“We believe the market-share gain for Baidu versus the market-share loss for Google is likely related to Google China’s partial exit,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Alicia Yap wrote in a July 19 report. The changes in Google’s China site “caused increasingly bad user experiences,” according to Yap.
Outperforming Rivals
Baidu’s ADRs fell less than 1 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading today before the earnings announcement. The stock has outperformed online rivals in China this year including Tencent Holdings Ltd., the country’s biggest Internet company by market value, and Alibaba.com Ltd., the leading local e-commerce operator.
Sales during the three-month period were 1.9 billion yuan, compared with 1.1 billion yuan a year earlier. Revenue is expected to rise to as much as 2.26 billion yuan in the third quarter, Baidu said. This compares with the 2.18 billion yuan average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The adoption of Baidu’s Phoenix Nest advertising system also boosted the company’s sales, according to Citigroup’s Yap. In December, Baidu introduced the program, which is designed to facilitate the sales of online-search keywords to clients.
Baidu accounted for 70.8 percent of China’s search-engine market by revenue in the second-quarter, rising from 67.8 percent three months earlier, according to research company iResearch. Google’s market share dropped to 27.3 percent from 29.5 percent.
In March, Google defied the Chinese government by ending self-censorship of its local search service and redirecting users to an unfiltered Hong Kong site. The U.S. company won the renewal of its Internet license in China this month after submitting a revised application on the grounds that it would now point users to the Hong Kong site, instead of redirecting them automatically.
China had an estimated 420 million Internet users at the end of June, an increase of 36 million from six months earlier, according to data from the government-sponsored China Internet Network Information Center.
Net income for the three months ended June more than doubled to 837.4 million yuan ($123.6 million), or 2.40 yuan per American depositary receipt, Baidu said today in a statement. That exceeded the 710.4 million yuan average of 14 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. In the year-earlier period, Baidu’s profit was 383.3 million yuan, or 1.10 yuan per ADR.
Baidu gained advertisers from Google after the U.S. company shut its China-based search site in March and redirected local users offshore to avoid censorship rules in the world’s biggest online market. The Beijing-based company’s stock has climbed 78 percent in U.S. trading this year, making it the best performer in the Morgan Stanley Internet Index.
“We believe the market-share gain for Baidu versus the market-share loss for Google is likely related to Google China’s partial exit,” Citigroup Inc. analyst Alicia Yap wrote in a July 19 report. The changes in Google’s China site “caused increasingly bad user experiences,” according to Yap.
Outperforming Rivals
Baidu’s ADRs fell less than 1 percent in Nasdaq Stock Market trading today before the earnings announcement. The stock has outperformed online rivals in China this year including Tencent Holdings Ltd., the country’s biggest Internet company by market value, and Alibaba.com Ltd., the leading local e-commerce operator.
Sales during the three-month period were 1.9 billion yuan, compared with 1.1 billion yuan a year earlier. Revenue is expected to rise to as much as 2.26 billion yuan in the third quarter, Baidu said. This compares with the 2.18 billion yuan average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
The adoption of Baidu’s Phoenix Nest advertising system also boosted the company’s sales, according to Citigroup’s Yap. In December, Baidu introduced the program, which is designed to facilitate the sales of online-search keywords to clients.
Baidu accounted for 70.8 percent of China’s search-engine market by revenue in the second-quarter, rising from 67.8 percent three months earlier, according to research company iResearch. Google’s market share dropped to 27.3 percent from 29.5 percent.
In March, Google defied the Chinese government by ending self-censorship of its local search service and redirecting users to an unfiltered Hong Kong site. The U.S. company won the renewal of its Internet license in China this month after submitting a revised application on the grounds that it would now point users to the Hong Kong site, instead of redirecting them automatically.
China had an estimated 420 million Internet users at the end of June, an increase of 36 million from six months earlier, according to data from the government-sponsored China Internet Network Information Center.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Google Changes China Access after Beijing Objects
Associated Press
Google Inc. said Tuesday it will stop automatically routing users in China to its Hong Kong site after Beijing threatened the company with the loss of its Internet license in their latest skirmish over censorhip.
Google shut down its China-based search engine March 22 to avoid cooperating with the communist government's Internet censorship and has rerouted users to Hong Kong. But Google said regulators told the company its Internet license, which allows it to operate a music download service and other features in China, would not be renewed after it expires Wednesday if that tactic continues.
"They made it clear to us that they did not think the redirect was acceptable," said a Google spokeswoman, Jessica Powell. She declined to say what reasons the government gave for its objections.
The loss of permission to operate a China-based website would damage Google's access to an Internet market that already is the world's biggest and still growing fast, with 384 million people online at the end of 2009.
Under the new measure, instead of being automatically switched to Hong Kong, visitors to Google.cn see a tab that says, "We have moved to google.com.hk." Clicking on that takes users to the Chinese-language site in Hong Kong, which is Chinese territory but has Western-style civil liberties with no Internet filtering.
Automatic rerouting would end completely in the next few days, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said on a company blog, leaving open the possibility that some users still were being switched to Hong Kong on Tuesday.
There was no immediate word from Beijing about whether the move was sufficient for Google to keep its Internet license.
"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self-censor and, we believe, with local law," said Drummond.
"We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via Google.cn."
But Chinese regulators might not be satisfied, said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research firm in Beijing.
"It's not clear today whether just doing it that way is also permitted," Yu said.
Google's popularity in China was unhurt by the automatic rerouting and advertising revenues stayed strong, Yu said. But he said the added click to reach Hong Kong, if Chinese regulators allow Google to operate that way, might drive away some users.
"If traffic is hurt, then advertisers will panic and cut spending," he said.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said he had not seen Google's announcement and could not comment on it. However, he added, "I would like to stress that the Chinese government encourages foreign enterprises to operate in China according to law."
Beijing encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block access to pornography or subversive material.
Google launched its China-based site in 2006 after the filters blocked many Chinese users from reaching its main site.
The Mountain View, California-based company announced in January it no longer wished to comply with Chinese censorship and said hackers working from China tried to steal its code and break into e-mail accounts of human rights activists.
The statement was an embarrassment for China's leaders, who want foreign companies to help develop its technology industries.
Google hopes to keep a research center in China, an advertising sales team that generates most of its revenue in the country and a fledgling mobile phone business.
It has a 30 percent share of China's search traffic, versus 60 percent for local rival Baidu Inc. Baidu is expected to pick up any advertising lost by Google but industry analysts say the lack of competition if the U.S. company leaves could slow the development of what Chinese leaders see as an important industry.
In a statement June 8, the government said the Internet played an "irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy." But it vowed to keep a tight grip on online content and to block subversive material.
Regulators block websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to prevent dissidents and human rights or Tibet activists from using them to spread criticism of Beijing.
Google shut down its China-based search engine March 22 to avoid cooperating with the communist government's Internet censorship and has rerouted users to Hong Kong. But Google said regulators told the company its Internet license, which allows it to operate a music download service and other features in China, would not be renewed after it expires Wednesday if that tactic continues.
"They made it clear to us that they did not think the redirect was acceptable," said a Google spokeswoman, Jessica Powell. She declined to say what reasons the government gave for its objections.
The loss of permission to operate a China-based website would damage Google's access to an Internet market that already is the world's biggest and still growing fast, with 384 million people online at the end of 2009.
Under the new measure, instead of being automatically switched to Hong Kong, visitors to Google.cn see a tab that says, "We have moved to google.com.hk." Clicking on that takes users to the Chinese-language site in Hong Kong, which is Chinese territory but has Western-style civil liberties with no Internet filtering.
Automatic rerouting would end completely in the next few days, Google's chief legal officer David Drummond said on a company blog, leaving open the possibility that some users still were being switched to Hong Kong on Tuesday.
There was no immediate word from Beijing about whether the move was sufficient for Google to keep its Internet license.
"This new approach is consistent with our commitment not to self-censor and, we believe, with local law," said Drummond.
"We are therefore hopeful that our license will be renewed on this basis so we can continue to offer our Chinese users services via Google.cn."
But Chinese regulators might not be satisfied, said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research firm in Beijing.
"It's not clear today whether just doing it that way is also permitted," Yu said.
Google's popularity in China was unhurt by the automatic rerouting and advertising revenues stayed strong, Yu said. But he said the added click to reach Hong Kong, if Chinese regulators allow Google to operate that way, might drive away some users.
"If traffic is hurt, then advertisers will panic and cut spending," he said.
A foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said he had not seen Google's announcement and could not comment on it. However, he added, "I would like to stress that the Chinese government encourages foreign enterprises to operate in China according to law."
Beijing encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block access to pornography or subversive material.
Google launched its China-based site in 2006 after the filters blocked many Chinese users from reaching its main site.
The Mountain View, California-based company announced in January it no longer wished to comply with Chinese censorship and said hackers working from China tried to steal its code and break into e-mail accounts of human rights activists.
The statement was an embarrassment for China's leaders, who want foreign companies to help develop its technology industries.
Google hopes to keep a research center in China, an advertising sales team that generates most of its revenue in the country and a fledgling mobile phone business.
It has a 30 percent share of China's search traffic, versus 60 percent for local rival Baidu Inc. Baidu is expected to pick up any advertising lost by Google but industry analysts say the lack of competition if the U.S. company leaves could slow the development of what Chinese leaders see as an important industry.
In a statement June 8, the government said the Internet played an "irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy." But it vowed to keep a tight grip on online content and to block subversive material.
Regulators block websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to prevent dissidents and human rights or Tibet activists from using them to spread criticism of Beijing.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
China Vows to Continue Blocking Internet Content
Chicago Tribune
BEIJING (AP) — China vowed Tuesday to keep a tight grip on the Internet, saying it would continue to block anything considered subversive or threatening to "national unity."
The "white paper" statement of government policy was released three months after a public dispute over censorship prompted Google Inc. to shut its mainland-based search engine.
It said there were 384 million Internet users in China at the end of 2009, about 29 percent of the population. The government aims to boost that to 45 percent in the next five years by pushing into rural areas where the white paper said there was a "digital gap."
It said the Internet had taken an "irreplaceable role in accelerating the development of the national economy" and would continue to impact daily work, education and lifestyles.
But China, which routinely blocks websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, gave no sign there would be an easing of the "Great Firewall" — the nickname for the network of filters that keep mainland Web surfers from accessing material the government deems sensitive.
The official English translation of the white paper favorably mentions Twitter — an apparent glitch since the U.S. microblogging service has been banned in China since last year. The English version named Twitter as an example of a fast-growing service that allows people to express themselves, while the Chinese version mentions only micro-blogs.
The 31-page white paper did not give specific examples of what content would be banned, saying Chinese laws prohibit the spread of "contents subverting state power, undermining national unity, infringing upon national honor and interests, inciting ethnic hatred and secession" as well as such things as pornography and terror.
The white paper also put the onus on companies to block content deemed sensitive, saying China required Internet service providers to set up "Internet security management systems and utilize technical measures to prevent the transmission of all types of illegal information."
Google ran afoul of the government when it accused Chinese hackers of trying to plunder its software coding and of hijacking the Gmail accounts of human rights activists, and said it would stop self-censoring its search results in line with Chinese regulations.
It moved its search service to the freer Chinese territory of Hong Kong in March.
The white paper did not mention Google, but said anyone using the Internet in China had to respect its laws. "Within Chinese territory the Internet is under the jurisdiction of Chinese sovereignty. The Internet sovereignty of China should be respected and protected," it said.
Monday, May 03, 2010
China Targets 'Foreign Forces' in Web Crackdown
Associated Press
The home of Internet Hack Attacks -- China -- now wants to target 'foreign forces' in Web crackdown
China will target online information from "overseas hostile forces" in its next crackdown to tighten Internet controls, a government spokesman said in comments reported Monday.
The announcement gave no details about which groups might be targeted but Beijing sometimes accuses political, human rights, Tibet and other activists abroad of trying to undermine communist rule.
The move is part of efforts to step up a crackdown on online smut, gambling, fraud and other offenses, said Wang Chen, chief of the Cabinet's Information Office, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
"We will strengthen the blocking of harmful information from outside China to prevent harmful information from being disseminated in China and withstand online penetration by overseas hostile forces," Wang was quoted as saying.
Beijing encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block material deemed subversive or pornographic and operates an extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship. Regulators block access to websites abroad run by political and human rights activists and some news organizations.
U.S.-based Google Inc. moved its China-based search engine to Hong Kong last month after announcing it no longer wanted to cooperate with Chinese online censorship.
China's population of Internet users, already by far the world's largest, has surpassed 400 million, with 233 million users getting access through mobile phones, according to weekend reports by state media, also citing Wang.
Beijing has launched repeated crackdowns against online pornography and fraud and has taken steps in recent months to block use of the Web by activists to spread criticism of the government.
China on Thursday strengthened a law to require telecommunications and internet companies to inform on customers who discuss state secrets - an area so broadly defined that both companies and Chinese citizens have struggled to know just what a state secret is.
In February, the government announced that individuals who want to operate websites must meet in person with regulators and submit photos of themselves.
In April, three people who posted material online about the death of a pregnant woman in police custody were sentenced to prison by a court in southern China. They were convicted of slander.
The move is part of efforts to step up a crackdown on online smut, gambling, fraud and other offenses, said Wang Chen, chief of the Cabinet's Information Office, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
"We will strengthen the blocking of harmful information from outside China to prevent harmful information from being disseminated in China and withstand online penetration by overseas hostile forces," Wang was quoted as saying.
Beijing encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block material deemed subversive or pornographic and operates an extensive system of Web monitoring and censorship. Regulators block access to websites abroad run by political and human rights activists and some news organizations.
U.S.-based Google Inc. moved its China-based search engine to Hong Kong last month after announcing it no longer wanted to cooperate with Chinese online censorship.
China's population of Internet users, already by far the world's largest, has surpassed 400 million, with 233 million users getting access through mobile phones, according to weekend reports by state media, also citing Wang.
Beijing has launched repeated crackdowns against online pornography and fraud and has taken steps in recent months to block use of the Web by activists to spread criticism of the government.
China on Thursday strengthened a law to require telecommunications and internet companies to inform on customers who discuss state secrets - an area so broadly defined that both companies and Chinese citizens have struggled to know just what a state secret is.
In February, the government announced that individuals who want to operate websites must meet in person with regulators and submit photos of themselves.
In April, three people who posted material online about the death of a pregnant woman in police custody were sentenced to prison by a court in southern China. They were convicted of slander.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Google Says Mobile Service in China Partially Blocked
Bloomberg
Bloomberg
Google Inc., after shutting its Internet search engine in China last week, said its mobile services in the country are being partially blocked.
The services delivered to wireless phones were operating normally until becoming partly shut down yesterday, Google said on its Web site that tracks service availability in mainland China.
“Service availability fluctuates regularly, and it is too early to tell if this blockage will be persistent,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “There is no specific indication that the change is related to our recent announcement.”
Google is keeping close tabs on its various Web-delivered services in China after a standoff with authorities led the company to start redirecting users of its Chinese search engine to its Hong Kong site. Google pledged in January to stop censoring results in mainland China after hackers stole data and targeted e-mail accounts of human-rights activists.
Mobile is the first service in China to have a change in status since Google unveiled the feature-tracking site on March 22.
Google’s Web, images and news-search services continue to have “no issues” while video-sharing site YouTube and Blogger remain blocked, according to the feature tracker.
The Mountain View, California-based company said last week it would no longer offer its mobile SEO applications on Android phones in China “until further notice.” Chinese companies can still sell phones that use Android, an operating system backed by Google.
Google fell 80 cents to $561.89 at 2:50 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares had dropped 9.2 percent this year before today.
The services delivered to wireless phones were operating normally until becoming partly shut down yesterday, Google said on its Web site that tracks service availability in mainland China.
“Service availability fluctuates regularly, and it is too early to tell if this blockage will be persistent,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “There is no specific indication that the change is related to our recent announcement.”
Google is keeping close tabs on its various Web-delivered services in China after a standoff with authorities led the company to start redirecting users of its Chinese search engine to its Hong Kong site. Google pledged in January to stop censoring results in mainland China after hackers stole data and targeted e-mail accounts of human-rights activists.
Mobile is the first service in China to have a change in status since Google unveiled the feature-tracking site on March 22.
Google’s Web, images and news-search services continue to have “no issues” while video-sharing site YouTube and Blogger remain blocked, according to the feature tracker.
The Mountain View, California-based company said last week it would no longer offer its mobile SEO applications on Android phones in China “until further notice.” Chinese companies can still sell phones that use Android, an operating system backed by Google.
Google fell 80 cents to $561.89 at 2:50 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares had dropped 9.2 percent this year before today.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)