in china big companies are usually in close yet undisclosed contact with the govt. it would supprise me if baidu was an exception. when i was in china i found

in china big companies are usually in close yet undisclosed contact with the govt. it would supprise me if baidu was an exception. when i was in china i found that all google services where extremely flaky: dropped packets, super long roundtrips, meager throughput and often unreachable for a few minutes. in my opinion they where almost unusable for 'business'. at the same time websites like slashdot or our beloveth hn were just doing fine. while baidu.com, qq.com, taobao.com (all super popular sites in china) were all blazing fast. i know i am suggesting something without providing proper proof. but for me it is quite clear what drives the success behind baidu -- its the lousy access the chinese have to the world's leading alternative to it. just my 2 rupees.