An Industry Giant\u27s Struggles: Google\u27s Relative Failure Within China

This thesis aims to understand and further explain the reasons culminating in Google\u27s relative failure in the Chinese search engine market. By examining Google\u27s tenure in China, Google\u27s fairings in other large East Asian markets, and other Western corporations\u27 troubles adapting to the Chinese market, this paper works to exhibit the reasons for Google\u27s failure in China. Many of Google\u27s high-ranking officers have claimed censorship as the most important factor in forcing the industry giant to vacate one of the fastest growing and most populous search engine markets in the world, but this paper seeks to exemplify that Google\u27s approach to China was flawed and may have contributed to its failure just as much as censorship. Through the utilization of papers detailing Google\u27s efforts in various East Asian markets, various sources showing the Chinese government\u27s works against Google and the Chinese public\u27s perception of Google\u27s actions, and works discussing Google\u27s strategy in East Asia, the paper analyzes how Google was affected both by internal and external stimuli in the four areas that affect search engine loyalty according to various researchers: speed, comprehensiveness, ease, and relevance. The conclusion is that, while nothing is certain due to how interconnected every aspect of the question is, Google\u27s flawed business plan for the Chinese market and inability to overcome the label as an overly foreign corporation ultimately concluded in its inability to best China\u27s homegrown search engine, Baidu, and its decision to depart the Chinese market

Baidu, Weibo and Renren: The Global Political Economy of Social Media in China

The task of this work is to conduct a global political-economic analysis of China's major social media platforms in the context of transformations of the Chinese economy. It analyses Chinese social media's commodity and capital form. It compares the political economy of Baidu (search engine), Weibo (microblog) and Renren (social networking site) to the political economy of the US platforms Google (search engine), Twitter (microblog) and Facebook (social networking site) in order to analyse differences and commonalities. The comparative analysis focuses on aspects such as profits, the role of advertising, the boards of directors, shareholders, financial market values, terms of use and usage policies. The analysis is framed by the question to which extent China has a capitalist or socialist economy

Novelty in news search: a longitudinal study of the 2020 US elections

The 2020 US elections news coverage was extensive, with new pieces of information generated rapidly. This evolving scenario presented an opportunity to study the performance of search engines in a context in which they had to quickly process information as it was published. We analyze novelty, a measurement of new items that emerge in the top news search results, to compare the coverage and visibility of different topics. We conduct a longitudinal study of news results of five search engines collected in short-bursts (every 21 minutes) from two regions (Oregon, US and Frankfurt, Germany), starting on election day and lasting until one day after the announcement of Biden as the winner. We find more new items emerging for election related queries ("joe biden", "donald trump" and "us elections") compared to topical (e.g., "coronavirus") or stable (e.g., "holocaust") queries. We demonstrate differences across search engines and regions over time, and we highlight imbalances between candidate queries. When it comes to news search, search engines are responsible for such imbalances, either due to their algorithms or the set of news sources they rely on. We argue that such imbalances affect the visibility of political candidates in news searches during electoral periods

On automatic testing of web search engines

Web search engines are very important because they are the means by which people retrieve information from the World Wide Web. However, testing these web search engines is difficult because there are no test oracles, so this research proposes seven new metrics based on the idea of metamorphic relations to alleviate the oracle problem in search engine testing. Using these metrics, our method can test search engines automatically in the absence of an ideal oracle. Using this method, we further conduct large-scale empirical studies to investigate and compare the qualities of four major search engines, namely, Google (www.google.com), Baidu (www.baidu.com), Bing (www.bing.com), and Chinese Bing (www.bing.com.cn). Our empirical studies involve more than 50 million queries sent to the search engines across 9 months, and about 300 GB data collected from the search engine responses. It is found that different search engines have significantly different performance and that the nature of the query terms can have a significant impact on the performance of the search engines. These empirical study results demonstrate that our method can effectively alleviate the oracle problem in search engine testing, and can help both developers and users to obtain a better understanding of the search engine behaviour under different operational profiles

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research

Fostering Freedom Online: The Role of Internet Intermediaries

“Fostering Freedom Online: the Role of Internet Intermediaries” is the title of a new title in the UNESCO Internet freedom series. With the rise of Internet intermediaries that play a mediating role on the internet between authors of content and audiences, UNESCO took a joint initiative, with the Open Society Foundations, the Internet Society, and Center for Global Communication Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, to examine this recent historical phenomenon and how it impacts on freedom of expression and associated fundamental rights such as privacy. The case study research, collaboratively delivered by 16 international researchers led by Ms Rebecca MacKinnon and Mr Allon Bar, as well as 14 members of International Advisory Committee, covers of three categories of intermediaries: Internet Service Providers (fixed line and mobile) such as Vodafone (UK, Germany, Egypt), Vivo/Telefônica Brasil (Brazil), Bharti Airtel (India, Kenya), Safaricom (Kenya), Search Engines such as Google (USA, EU, India, China, Russia), Baidu (China), Yandex (Russia) and Social Networking Platforms such as Facebook (USA, Germany, India, Brazil, Egypt), Twitter (USA, Kenya), Weibo (China), iWiW (Hungary). The research showed that internet intermediaries are heavily influenced by the legal and policy environments of states, but they do have leeway over many areas of policy and practice affecting online expression and privacy. The findings also highlighted the challenge where many state policies, laws, and regulations are – to varying degrees – poorly aligned with the duty to promote and protect intermediaries’ respect for freedom of expression. It is a resource which enables the assessment of Internet intermediaries’ decisions on freedom of expression, by ensuring that any limitations are consistent with international standards

With special reference to GDPR

학위논문 (석사) -- 서울대학교 대학원 : 법과대학 법학과(지식재산전공), 2021. 2. 정상조.The prolonged exposure and retention of a massive amount of personal information on the Internet, as well as the frantic pursuit of data by companies and individuals in the age of big data, have created a new privacy crisis. As a legal response to the eternal memory of the Internet, the European Union has proposed The Right to Be Forgotten to tackle the privacy crisis by empowering individuals to take down ones information from the Internet in certain circumstances. Regarding such a right, what kind of attitude should the Chinese legal system adopt? Should it follow the European footsteps or maintain a more cautious stance on this right? As an emerging right originated from Europe, the study of the EUs attempts to construct and implement the right to be forgotten could provide a clear lens of the new right. Thus, the article will carefully study the EUs legislation in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the implementation of the right to be forgotten. It attempts to analyze the connotation, the value conflict, and enforcement dilemmas of the new right. And on this basis, the article will explore whether there is room for localization of the right to be forgotten in China based on chinas national conditions. The paper consists of seven chapters: Chapter 1 examines the rationale of the right to be forgotten, revealing the foundation for the generation and growth of the right in Europe. Chapter 2 tracks back the legislative history of the right to be forgotten in the EU. It reveals how the right has been conceptualized over time and attempts to clarify the underlying values in the right to be forgotten. Chapter 3 attempts to delineate the scope of the right to be forgotten and explore what kinds of data are worth forgetting. Chapter 4 discusses the enforcement dilemma of the right to be forgotten, especially the role of search engines in the context of the right to be forgotten, and its ensuing obligations as a data controller. Chapter 5 turns the focus back to China. By sketching the framework of privacy and data protection law in china with a comparison to the right to be forgotten in the EU, it attempts to assess whether such legislative actions imply the right to be forgotten. Chapter 6 introduces the judicial practice of the right to be forgotten in China: Renjiayu v Baidu, which is called the First case of the right to be Forgotten in china. Through the interpretation of the judgments of the two trials, it can clarify the path of protecting the right to be forgotten under the existing Chinese law and the reject reasons, as well as the judges attitude to the right. The last Chapter 7 analyzes the possibility of Chinas introduction of the right to be forgotten from the perspective of necessity and the obstacles based on chinas national status.인터넷상에서의 수많은 개인정보의 장기간 노출과 보유, 또 빅데이터 시대에 회사와 개인들이 데이터에 열광하면서 새로운 프라이버시 위기가 찾아오고 있다. 유럽 연합은 인터넷의 영원한 기억에 대한 법적 대응으로 '잊혀질 권리'를 내세웠고, 개인에게 특정 상황에서 자신의 정보를 인터넷에서 삭제하도록 권한을 부여함으로써 이번 프라이버시 위기를 해결할 수 있도록 했다. 이러한 권리에 대해 중국의 법 제도는 어떤 태도를 취해야 하는가? 유럽을 따라야 하는가, 아니면 이 문제에 대해 좀 더 신중한 입장을 유지해야 하는가? 잊혀질 권리는 유럽에서 새롭게 생겨난 권리이다. 잊혀질 권리를 구축하고 정착 시키려는 EU의 시도를 연구함으로써 이 새로운 권리에 대해 명확한 시각에서 이해해 볼 수 있다. 따라서 본 논문은 EU의 개인정보보호규정(GDPR)의 입법 및 잊혀질 권리 실행에 대해 면밀하게 탐구함으로써 잊혀질 권리의 함의를 정의하고, 법의 가치 충돌 및 현실적 집행 딜레마에 대한 분석을 시도하였다. 또한 이를 바탕으로 본 논문은 중국의 실정에 맞추어 잊혀질 권리의 중국에서의 도입 가능 여부를 검토하였다. 본 논문은 총 7장으로 이루어져 있다. 제1장에서는 잊혀질 권리의 원리에 대해 탐구하고, 유럽에서의 잊혀질 권리의 탄생과 발전 기반에 대해 살펴보았다. 제2장에서는 역사 분석을 통해 EU의 잊혀질 권리 관련 입법 과정을 살펴보고, 잊혀질 권리의 기본 가치를 규명하였다. 제3장에서는 잊혀질 권리의 가치의 갈등에 대해 다루고, 어떠한 데이터가 잊혀질 만 한지에 대해 탐구하였다. 제4장에서는 잊혀질 권리의 실행 딜레마, 특히 검색엔진의 역할과 데이터 통제자로서의 의무에 대해 논하였다. 제5장에서는 중국에 주안점을 두어, 중국의 프라이버시와 데이터 보호법의 틀을 개략적으로 서술하였다. 또한 EU의 잊혀질 권리와의 비교를 통해 입법 동향에 잊혀질 권리가 내재되어 있는지 평가하였다. 제6장에서는 중국의 '잊혀질 권리 제1 사건'으로 불리는 '런지아위 바이두 고소 사건'에 대해 분석하였다. 판결문 해석을 통해 중국 현행법의 잊혀질 권리 보호 경로와 거부 사유, 그리고 판결 배후의 법관 고려 사항과 태도 등을 살펴볼 수 있었다. 마지막으로 제7장에서는 중국의 잊혀질 권리 도입의 필요성과 현실적인 장벽 등의 관점에서 중국의 잊혀질 권리 도입의 실행 가능성을 분석하였다.Introduction 1 1. Background: Perfect Memory of the Internet 1 2. Purpose and Research Question 1 3. Review of the Scholars' Opinions on the Localization of RTBF 3 3.1. Positive Attitude 3 3.2. Negative Attitude 5 3.3. Analysis of Above Opinions 7 4. Outline 8 5. Methodology 9 Chapter 1 The Rationale of the Right to Be Forgotten 11 1. The Right to Be Forgotten in Dignity: Forgetting and Forgive 11 1.1. The Right to Oblivion 12 1.2. Privacy Protection in Europe 13 2. The Right to Be Forgotten in Data Protection 15 2.1. Informational Self-determination: Control 15 2.2. The Fundamental Right to Protect Personal Information 16 3. Summary 18 Chapter 2 The Right to Be Forgotten in GDPR 19 1. Lack of uniformity in the conception of the right to be forgotten 19 1.1. Unique Meaning 20 1.2. Binary Meanings 20 1.3. Multiple Meanings 20 2. The Evolution of the Right to Be Forgotten in GDPR 22 2.1. Proposal of the Right to Be Forgotten: Withdraw Information Published by the Data Subject 22 2.2. Google Spain Case 25 2.2.1. Search Engines as a Data Controller 27 2.2.2. Expand to Information Legally Published by Third Parties 29 2.2.3. Delisting and Contextual Integrity 32 2.3. Integration in the GDPR: Article 17 33 3. Summary: Value of the Right to Be Forgotten 35 Chapter 3 Value Conflict: What is worth forgetting 39 1. Digital footprint and digital shadow 39 2. Conflicting interests and rights 41 2.1. Freedom of Expression 41 2.2. Public interest 43 3. Balancing mechanism 44 3.1. Principle of Proportionality in data protection 44 3.2. Specific criteria 45 3.2.1. Data Subject's role in public life 47 3.2.2. Nature of information 47 3.2.3. Source 49 3.2.4. Time 50 3.2.4.1. Time and Data Quality 51 3.2.4.2. Information value and the information lifecycle 52 3.2.5. Harm: A Level of Severity and Pervasiveness 53 4. Balancing scenario 54 4.1. Against Search engines: NT1 & NT2 54 4.2. Against Original Website: ML and WW v Germany 57 5. Summary 59 Chapter 4 Effectiveness: Enforcement Dilemma 61 1. Search Engines and ensuing obligations as data controller 61 1.1. Assess the validity of the request 61 1.2. Notification 62 1.2.1. To the Other Controllers 63 1.2.2. To the Original Website 63 1.2.3. To the Public 64 2. Issues: 65 2.1. Role of Google: A Data Controller or Neutral Intermediary 65 2.1.1. Passive role or Active role 66 2.1.2. Algorithm as Speech 68 2.2. Fair Balancing: An Illusion 68 2.2.1. Difficulty in Striking A Balancing 68 2.2.2. Over-Compliance: Uncertainty and Stick 69 2.2.3. Heavy Burden 69 2.2.4. Due Process 70 2.3. Limited Effect 70 3. Summary 72 Chapter 5 China's Privacy and Data Protection Framework 73 1. Online privacy protection 73 1.1. Cultural backdrop 73 1.2. Legislation on the right to privacy 75 1.2.1. Concept of the right to privacy 78 1.2.2. Comparison with the right to be forgotten 80 1.3. ISP Responsibility 83 2. Personal data protection in the PRC 85 2.1. Recent initiatives 86 2.2. Protection Approach: Growing Independent from Privacy 89 2.3. Principles and conditions for lawful processing 92 2.4. Public disclosure of personal information 98 2.5. Right to Erasure 104 3. Summary 109 Chapter 6 Judicial practice of The Right to Be Forgotten in China: Renjiayu vs Baidu 111 1. Fact 111 1.1. Claim of Mr. Ren: Substantial Damage 111 1.2. Defense of Baidu: No knowledge, No intent, No human intervene 113 2. Judgement 113 2.1. Trial at first instance 114 2.2. Trial at second instance 117 3. Comment 117 3.1. The legal basis of the "Right to Be Forgotten" in china: Comment on the general personality right approach 117 3.1.1. The approach is reasonable 118 3.1.2. Limitation of the approach 121 3.2. Worthy of Forgetting 124 3.2.1. Data quality and the effect of time 124 3.2.2. Ren Jiayu's role in society and the right to know 125 3.3. Baidu's liability: Safe card of "Technology Neutrality" 125 3.4. Judicial attitude to the right to be forgotten 128 Chapter 7 Reflection on the localization of the right to be forgotten in china 130 1. Basic attitude 130 1.1. Necessity: Fulfill the contemporary needs 130 1.1.1. The need to maintain digital personality 130 1.1.2. The need for the free development of personality 131 1.1.3. The need to manage online content 132 1.1.4. Public interest in published information does not always outweigh an individual's privacy interest 133 1.2. Obstacles of the localization of the right to be forgotten in china 133 1.2.1. The inherent Obstacle: impact on openness of public opinion 134 1.2.2. The external obstacle: challenges in implementation 135 1.2.2.1. Contradiction with the development of information industry 135 1.2.2.2. Potential litigation will occupy judicial resources 137 1.3. Summary 138 2. Insights from the European's right to be forgotten 140 2.1. Reflection of the informational self-determination: control 140 2.2. Reflection to the protection of published information: flexible balancing mechanism 143 2.3. Reflection of Obligations of search engines 144 2.4. Specific implementation method 147 2.4.1. Principle of proportionality 147 2.4.2. Differentiation should be made on the data subjects 147 2.4.2.1. Natural person and legal entities 148 2.4.2.2. Public figures and ordinary citizens 148 2.4.2.3. Special treatment of minors and victims 149 2.4.3. Coordinate Alternative manners other than erasure 150 3. Restore the virtue of forgetting beyond the law 150 3.1. Market 150 3.2. Technology 151 3.3. Culture 151 Conclusion 153 References 156 Korean Abstract (요약문) 167Maste

Searching for harm or harming search? A look at the European Commission\u2019s antitrust investigation against Google

As the European Commission\u2019s antitrust investigation against Google approaches its final stages, its contours and likely outcome remain obscure and blurred by a plethora of non antitrust-related arguments. At the same time, the initial focus on search neutrality as an antitrust principle seems to have been abandoned by the European Commission, in favour of a more standard allegation of \u2018exclusionary abuse\u2019, likely to generate anticompetitive foreclosure of Google\u2019s rivals. This paper discusses search neutrality as an antitrust principle, and then comments on the current investigation based on publicly available information. The paper provides a critical assessment of the likely tests that will be used for the definition of the relevant product market, the criteria for the finding of dominance, the anticompetitive foreclosure test and the possible remedies that the European Commission might choose. Overall, and regardless of the outcome of the Google case, the paper argues that the current treatment of exclusionary abuses in Internet markets is in urgent need of a number of important clarifications, and has been in this condition for more than a decade. The hope is that the European Commission will resist the temptation to imbue the antitrust case with an emphasis and meaning that have nothing to do with antitrust (from industrial policy motives to privacy, copyright or media law arguments) and that, on the contrary, the Commission will devote its efforts to sharpening its understanding of dynamic competition in cyberspace, and the tools that should be applied in the analysis of these peculiar, fast-changing and often elusive settings

Searching for harm or harming search? A look at the European Commission’s antitrust investigation against Google. CEPS Special Report No. 118/September 2015

As the European Commission’s antitrust investigation against Google approaches its final stages, its contours and likely outcome remain obscure and blurred by a plethora of nonantitrust-related arguments. At the same time, the initial focus on search neutrality as an antitrust principle seems to have been abandoned by the European Commission, in favour of a more standard allegation of ‘exclusionary abuse’, likely to generate anticompetitive foreclosure of Google’s rivals. This paper discusses search neutrality as an antitrust principle, and then comments on the current investigation based on publicly available information. The paper provides a critical assessment of the likely tests that will be used for the definition of the relevant product market, the criteria for the finding of dominance, the anticompetitive foreclosure test and the possible remedies that the European Commission might choose. Overall, and regardless of the outcome of the Google case, the paper argues that the current treatment of exclusionary abuses in Internet markets is in urgent need of a number of important clarifications, and has been in this condition for more than a decade. The hope is that the European Commission will resist the temptation to imbue the antitrust case with an emphasis and meaning that have nothing to do with antitrust (from industrial policy motives to privacy, copyright or media law arguments) and that, on the contrary, the Commission will devote its efforts to sharpening its understanding of dynamic competition in cyberspace, and the tools that should be applied in the analysis of these peculiar, fast-changing and often elusive settings

The Geopolitics of Tech: Baidu’s Vietnam

Internet Policy Observatory affiliate Sarah Logan investigates the international expansion of one of China’s biggest internet technology companies, Baidu, using Baidu’s recent attempted expansion into Vietnam as a test case and taking a mixed methods approach. The paper first outlines Baidu’s role in Chinese information control practices and then turns to the company’s 2012 expansion into Vietnam, examining Baidu’s puzzling failure in the Vietnamese market despite the historically strong relationship between Vietnam and China. This paper contributes a new area of research on the geopolitical associations of internet technology platforms to existing studies of the social, political implication of information technology. It adds to studies of the state in cyberspace by showing that, at least for Chinese companies in Vietnam, the state is embodied in perceptions of the platform, even outside the state’s physical borders: the company itself is ‘bordered.