China Asks Microsoft to Suspend Bing Auto-suggestions
- Laurent Giret
- Mar 21, 2022
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Microsoft has been asked by Chinese authorities to temporarily suspend Bing’s auto-suggest features in the country, according to Reuters. The suspension will be effective for seven days, and it will be the second time since December that Bing has to comply with such an order from China.
Bing users in China have noticed that the search engine’s auto-suggestion feature has been missing since Saturday. In a statement published on its Chinese search site and translated by Reuters, the Bing local team said that it was respecting local regulations but didn’t share any details about the suspension. “Bing is a global search platform and remains committed to respecting the rule of law and users’ right to access information,” the statement said.
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It’s no secret that Chinese authorities have been putting western Internet companies under high pressure in recent years. According to Reuters, China’s main Internet regulator has started enforcing new rules this month requiring Internet platforms to not use algorithms, and this may be one of the reasons why Bing had to temporarily disable auto-suggestions in the country.
Bing is the last major non-Chinese search engine to remain available in the country, where sites like Google, YouTube, or Wikipedia have already been banned. Back in October, Microsoft also closed its localized version of LinkedIn in China, which has since been replaced by a more straightforward job-seeking app without any social features.