Executive at Google China leaves for Baidu
Today, a Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) executive in China has left the company to take a position at the “China domestic” rival search engine Baidu Inc. (Public,NASDAQ:BIDU), according to the Financial Times website on Friday.
Baidu said Wang Jing had joined the search engine as a vice president in charge of engineering, however, Google is claiming that Wang quit his position as engineering director earlier this month.
It is the first known move by a senior Google employee to Baidu since the U.S.-based company’s March 23 decision to shift Chinese search functions to its Hong Kong Web site, where it isn’t required to self-censor results. Baidu is the No. 1 search provider in China.
Google stock price has been getting hammered since yesterday when Google announced their quarterly earnings. Despite coming in ahead of analyst estimates, Google stock (NASDAQ:GOOG) is down nearly 8% right now in after hours trading.