How a Chinese Company Built a $250M Search Hijacking Empire

Post by donmcronald » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 9:52 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #10

> Genimous Technology Co Ltd, a public company traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under the symbol 000676, is the 12 billion CNY ($1.7 billion USD) company that is behind these extensions If you're brave, short this. Shining a light on an edge of ethical/legal business has a good chance of making their revenue dry up fast.

Post by computerex » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 10:05 AM UTC

donmcronald wrote: post #11

Gustomaximus wrote: post #10

> Genimous Technology Co Ltd, a public company traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under the symbol 000676, is the 12 billion CNY ($1.7 billion USD) company that is behind these extensions If you're brave, short this. Shining a light on an edge of ethical/legal business has a good chance of making their revenue dry up fast.

It’s going to be super interesting to see what the reaction to this is (if any). Even though they sound like a terrible company, everyone should take note how easy it is for Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, etc. to make them disappear from existence.

Post by fasteo » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 10:21 AM UTC

Gustomaximus wrote: post #10

> Genimous Technology Co Ltd, a public company traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under the symbol 000676, is the 12 billion CNY ($1.7 billion USD) company that is behind these extensions If you're brave, short this. Shining a light on an edge of ethical/legal business has a good chance of making their revenue dry up fast.

Post by powerapple » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #8

chrischen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user’s intention is to proxy the search results so it is anonymized. Based on their chrome extension description it seems to do that. It works not unlike duckduckgo. Spinning it as some Anti-Chinese national security thing is probably unnecessary.

I don't think they anonymize the search, they just send it directly to Bing or Google. Anonymizing the search wouldn't earn them any money.

Post by stef25 » Wed, Dec 11, 2019, 10:27 AM UTC

computerex wrote: post #14

z3t4 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they anonymize the search, they just send it directly to Bing or Google. Anonymizing the search wouldn't earn them any money.

How does it earn them any money to begin with? I know the article claimed they have a revenue of $250 million a year, but unless they are somehow injecting their own ads, how does a simple redirection result in any revenue for them?