We all know about Internet censorship in China – search engines may or (more probably) may not return results for any sensitive queries. But now, when Sina wants to deliver an answer, it will be able to do so more reliably.
“Sina.com, China’s largest portal, has deployed the TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers to increase the performance of its leading search engine and portal,” according to a press release put out by Force10 Networks. The upshot: this “enables Sina to seamlessly scale its portal as its more than 100 million registered subscriber base expands.”
That sounds nice for Sina. And as you may remember, Sina has ties to Google China. So although the development is by no means a direct victory for Google, it’s still a win in a sort of friendly-onlooker way. (It also works in an enemy-of-my-enemy sense – Baidu stands against both Sina and Google.)
Unfortunately for Sina (and perhaps for Google), its new system will not receive the lion’s share of traffic related to the 2008 Olympics. Gu Wen of the China Daily reports that, after a protracted battle, “Olympic organizers . . . have confirmed Sohu’s marketing rights as an Olympic sponsor, such as its eligibility to use the Olympic logo, while promising crackdowns on ‘ambush marketing,’ which occurs when a company tries to establish or imply an association with the Games without paying any royalties.”
Well, you win some, you lose some. Or as Google’s been forced to do in this market, you sometimes sit on the sidelines.
