Sohu

Sohu, Inc. (Chinese: 搜狐; pinyin: Sōuhú; lit. 'Search-fox') is a Chinese Internet company headquartered in the Sohu Internet Plaza in Haidian District, Beijing.[4][5] Sohu and its subsidiaries offer advertising, a search engine, on-line multiplayer gaming and other services.

Sohu, Inc.
Type of businessPublic
Traded asNASDAQ: SOHU
FoundedAugust 1996 (IPO July 2000)[1]
Headquarters
Founder(s)Charles Zhang and Edward Roberts
Key peopleCharles Zhang (President, Chairman, CEO)
Carol Yu (CFO)
IndustryInternet
ProductsOnline services
Revenue.86 billion USD (2017)[2]
Employees7,098 (December 2012)[3]
URLsohu.com
Sohu.com Internet Plaza

History

Sohu was founded as Internet Technologies China (ITC) in 1996 by Charles Zhang after he completed his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received venture capital funding from colleagues he met there.[6] The following year, Zhang changed the name of ITC to Sohoo in homage to Yahoo! after meeting its cofounder, Jerry Yang; the name was soon after changed to Sohu to differentiate it from the American company.[7] Sohu has been listed on NASDAQ since 2000 through a variable interest entity (VIE) based in Delaware.[8][9]

Sohu's Sogou.com search engine was in talks to be sold in July 2013 to Qihoo for around $1.4 billion.[10] On September 17, 2013, it was announced that Tencent has invested $448 million for a minority share in Chinese search engine Sogou.com, the subsidiary of Sohu, Inc.[11]

Sohu was ranked as the world's third- and twelfth-fastest growing company by Fortune in 2009 and 2010, respectively.[12][13]

Allegations against Google

On April 6, 2007, Sohu made a request that Google stop providing its Google Pinyin Input Method Editor software for download because portions of Sohu's IME software, Sogou Pinyin, were allegedly copied in order to construct it.[14] The detection of the alleged copyright infringement was found due to a suspicious error found in both IMEs, notably the translation of the pinyin "pinggong" which erroneously produces the actor and comedian Feng Gong.[15] On April 9, 2007, Google's spokesman Cui Jin has admitted that the pinyin Google IME "was built leveraging some non-Google database resources."[16]

2008 Olympic Games website

In November 2005, Sohu was selected to be the Official Internet Content Service Sponsor of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. Sohu was provided exclusive services to construct, operate and host the official Beijing Olympics website.[17]

References
  1. "Company Milestones". Sohu. Archived from the original on August 24, 2019.
  2. "2017 Annual Report" (PDF). Retrieved August 3, 2018.
  3. "Company Profile for Sohu.com Inc (SOHU)". Retrieved December 31, 2012.
  4. "Contact Us." Sohu. Retrieved on December 27, 2010. "Headquarter Office Sohu.com Internet Plaza, No.1 Park, Zhongguancun East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, PRC ."
  5. "Sohu.com." CNN Money. Retrieved on August 19, 2009.
  6. "Charles Zhang a Confident Man of Action". China.org.cn. Retrieved April 12, 2020.
  7. Lee, Kai-Fu (September 25, 2018). AI Superpowers. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 31. ISBN 9781328546395.
  8. "Sohu.com Announces Stockholder Approval of Proposed Reorganization". CISION. Retrieved September 8, 2019.
  9. Levisohn, Ben (March 6, 2013). "Sohu denied rumors of Nasdaq delisting". Barrons.com.
  10. Reuters (July 19, 2013). "Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions". Reuters.
  11. Aitken, Todd (September 17, 2013). "Tencent invested $448 million in Chinese search engine Sogou". CEOWORLD Magazine.
  12. "The World's 3rd Fastest-Growing Company In 2009". Fortune magazine.
  13. "The World's 12th Fastest-Growing Company In 2010". Fortune magazine.
  14. Lemon, Sumner (April 8, 2007). "Rival Asks Google to Yank 'Copycat' Application". PC World. IDG. Retrieved April 11, 2007.
  15. Lemon, Sumner (April 6, 2007). "Google Evades Question About Software Similarities". PC World. IDG. Retrieved April 11, 2007.
  16. Lemon, Sumner (April 9, 2007). "Google Admits Using Outside Source for Chinese App". PC World. IDG. Retrieved April 11, 2007.
  17. "Sohu.com to run website for Beijing 2008 Olympic games". ChinaTechNews.com. Retrieved November 7, 2005.
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