Baidu Netdisk

Launch of Baidu Netdisk The March 2012 Baidu Developer Conference released a Cloud development strategy, including the launch of a Developer Center Website (http://developer.baidu.com/en/ ), and a cloud storage platform called Baidu Netdisk, meaning "web disk", for individual users. Baidu Netdisk had PC and Android client terminals, provided users a free 15 GB of space and allowed users to upload files and access them. It operated in competition with established Cloud operations such as Dropbox. Investment in Cloud Computing Center On 19 August 2012, Baidu started to build its Cloud Computing Center in Shanxi's Yangquan, which is the hometown of Baidu's Founder Robin Li. Baidu was reported to invest CNY4.708 billion in this center, with CNY2.92 billion for equipment and CNY1.788 billion for infrastructure. It aimed to "attract the world's top information technology manufacturers, and promote the information technology industry development in Yangquan and Shanxi." Upgrade to Baidu Cloud During the 2012 Baidu World Conference, Baidu announced upgrades to Baidu Netdisk, and a re-branding to "Baidu Cloud". It also launched a new logo, using graphics of clouds, which has been used since. It also issued "seven weapons" for developers, including: PCS, Screen X technical building services Site App, applications, cloud MTC LBS moving clouds, cloud Test Engine, Baidu engine BAE, and kernel browsing. Participation in Chinese Cloud Storage War On 22 August 2013, Baidu Cloud announced its offer of 2 terabytes of free permanent storage for users, as its strategy in the Cloud Storage 'war' in China. The other competitors in the war included Tencent, Qihoo 360, Sina, Huawei, and 115.com. Before the war, China's free storage services were mainly focused on storage capacity under 15GB. Rename to Baidu Netdisk On 11 October 2016, Baidu Yun were renamed to Baidu Netdisk. Meanwhile, its cloud computing services were renamed to Baidu Yun. Notorious Markets list In 2022, the Office of the United States Trade Representative named Baidu Netdisk on its list of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy. ==Technology==

File management Baidu Netdisk supports preview of files of photos, musics, videos and documents on each of its client terminal without downloading them as local files. The videos can be viewed directly on the web browsers, Android system, and iOS system. It provides file synchronization, enabling users to upload and download files of different types. It supports file sharing between different users, and different devices. Resource sharing Baidu Netdisk provides a platform to share resources. Combined with its own search engine, users can search resources and browse them online. Third party integration Baidu's cloud operation can be divided into two main categories: 1. Personal users (http://yun.baidu.com), and 2. Developers (https://web.archive.org/web/20140517205344/http://developer.baidu.com/en/), which is the Open Cloud. == Controversy ==

On 26 December 2013, the Japanese government's National Information Security Center (NISC) and Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology advised 140 institutions to either disable the cloud-input function of Baidu Input Method Editors (IMEs) or stop using Baidu IMEs. According to Bloomberg News, Tsuneo Tosaka, IDC Japan's Software & Security Research Manager claimed: "Baidu provides the service using a cloud server, which means content flows through servers in China" and "Government-related documents from Japan central ministries and findings from university research institutions are important, so there is a possibility that sensitive information leaks abroad." NISC also suggested not using Google input software and Microsoft input software. ==References==