China’s Baidu accuses US domain registry of negligence in lawsuit over cyber attack

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China’s Baidu sues US company over hacking

BEIJING — China’s most popular search engine, Baidu Inc., is accusing its U.S.-based domain name registry of negligence in a lawsuit over a hacking attack that temporarily blocked access to the site last week.

Baidu said Wednesday it has filed suit against Register.com Inc. in a New York court, seeking unspecified damages.

Hackers blocked access to Baidu on Jan. 12 by steering traffic to a Web site where a group reportedly calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army” claimed responsibility. There was no evidence the hackers were linked to Iran.

“Due to U.S. domain name registry service Register.com Inc.’s gross negligence, Baidu’s domain name www.baidu.com domain name resolution was illegally and maliciously altered,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement.

Resolution refers to the process that matches a Web site address written in words to the string of numbers that computers recognize as its place on the Internet. Baidu gave no details of what it accuses the registry of doing wrong.

Register.com called the lawsuit “completely without merit.”

“Register.com takes cyber-terrorism very seriously and we are working closely with federal law enforcement officials who are investigating this crime as well as the recent similar attacks on Twitter and Google,” the said company spokeswoman Alice McGillion in a prepared statement Wednesday.

Baidu, pronounced “by-doo,” has about 60 percent of China’s online search market, compared with about 35 percent for U.S.-based Google Inc., which last week threatened to threat to shut down its search engine in China over online censorship and hacking.

On the Net:

Baidu Inc.: www.baidu.com

Register.com: www.register.com