China's Baidu.com in domain dispute in Japan

By Sophie Taylor

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Baidu.com Inc., often described as "China's Google", has bumped up against an obstacle that the real Google has long grown accustomed to: cybersquatters on its first overseas venture.

Beijing-based Baidu, which controls more than half of the Web search market in China -- the world's second-largest Internet market after the United States -- last month started up Japanese portal www.baidu.jp as its first regular service outside its home market.

But now it has a ghost: www.baidu.co.jp.

The spartan Web site, which carries the name "CBC Company" in Japanese, has a note at the top on its front page that reads: "Our company has absolutely no connection with Japan Baidu K.K. and is a legal Japanese corporation."

The page also offers four links to different units: an imported watches division, a used car division, a Chinese restaurant and an industrial waste division.

The Web site carries a link to a Chinese translation, and another to a user log, which claimed that 160 users had clicked a total of 286 times on www.baidu.co.jp by midday on Monday.

The Web site of the Japan Intellectual Property Arbitration Centre (www.ip-adr.gr.jp) shows that Baidu lodged a complaint with the centre, which last month issued a ruling that the domain name should be transferred to Baidu.

CBC launched a case in Tokyo District Court at the end of March to contest the ruling, and the first hearing is expected in May, a CBC representative in Tokyo told Reuters.