Tencent Says 'Loophole' Allowed WeChat Searches on Google, Bing

The loopholes have since been fixed," Tencent said in a statement.

By Reuters | Updated: 22 October 2021 17:20 IST

Tencent Says 'Loophole' Allowed WeChat Searches on Google, Bing

The change had prompted speculation that Tencent was heeding a call by Chinese authorities

Highlights

Finding WeChat content on Google and Bing was initially raised by users
MIIT ordered companies to stop blocking links
The MIIT has also been studying plans and conducting research

Tencent's WeChat has fixed a glitch that allowed some of its content to be searchable by external search engines, the owner of China's most popular messaging app said on Friday, raising questions over regulators' latest attempt to crackdown on the internet sector.

Some of WeChat's content, including articles on its public accounts page, was briefly searchable in the last few days on Alphabet-owned Google and Microsoft's Bing, but not on China's dominant search engine Baidu, Reuters checks showed.

The change had prompted speculation that Tencent was heeding a call by Chinese authorities for its tech giants to tear down "walled gardens" in the country's cyberspace which has come amid a wide ranging crackdown on the sector.

Samsung Wins Patent for a Tri-Fold Smartphone With Specialised Barrier Layer for Improved Durability

"Due to recent technological upgrades, the official accounts' robots protocol had loopholes, which caused the external crawlers to scrape part of the official accounts' content," Tencent said in a statement in Chinese.

"The loopholes have since been fixed."

Google, Microsoft, and Baidu did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Google is not available in China.

WeChat’s ‘Youth Mode’ Faces Lawsuit Over Minors’ Safety Non-Compliance

The ability to find WeChat content on Google and Bing was initially raised by users on developer forums. China's internet sector has been long dominated by a handful of technology giants who have historically blocked rivals' links as well as their search crawlers, a practice is often referred to as 'walled gardens'.

In recent months, this practice has been targeted by Chinese authorities as part of a sweeping regulatory crackdown.

Last month, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) ordered companies to stop blocking links, which they said has affected users' experience and damaged consumer rights.

The MIIT has also been studying plans and conducting research to make WeChat content available on external search engines, according to a person with direct knowledge.

MIIT did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Some users on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform expressed dismay over Tencent's comments.

"This should be an important attempt of creating an open internet space, how can you call it a bug," said one user.

What's most interesting about Apple's new MacBook Pros, M1 Pro and M1 Max silicon, AirPods (3rd Generation), and Apple Music Voice plan? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.