Baidu Europe puts name up for sale
- Added:
- Sep 04, 2008
Groningen-based web company Baidu Europe is selling its highly sought-after brand and domain names - due to the popularity of the Beijing-based search engine of the same name.
Baidu Europe was established in 2003 and employs eight people, dealing with total automation and web design. When the company had the name Baidu registered, they were unaware of the Chinese search engine, which had been founded in 2000.
Following the latter's decision in 2006 to have itself represented in Europe by a Dutch agency, confusion arose between the identities of the two companies. To make it clear that Baidu Europe is not directly linked to the Chinese company, the European Baidu announced plans to build a search engine of their own - to enable users to differentiate between the two services.
As well as the brand name Baidu, the domain names for sale include baidu.eu, baidu.tv, baidu.nl and baidu.be. This move follows difficulties faced by the European Baidu following the Asian site's promotion across Europe.
Peter Ufkes, managing director of Baidu Europe, says: "The mounting popularity of the Asian Baidu, which has grown into the world's third-biggest search engine, the launch of new services such as Baidu TV - the domain name baidu.tv is already owned by Baidu Europe - and the Chinese company's activities related to the Olympic Games are making it very difficult to differentiate between the two companies"
The European trademark rights of Baidu Europe and twelve European Baidu domain names are being sold through the Amsterdam-based trademark agency De Merkplaats. Ufkes is expecting to attract a lot of interest in the European trademark rights and domain names: "Baidu Europe has gained a very good reputation during the past five years."