

Microsoft pulls China blog site amid code-theft charges - Elepsis
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10415483-56.html

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jf
Here is the press release quoted in this article:
[http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-14sta...](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-14statement.mspx)

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webology
They did the right thing by pulling the website. How it happened in the first
place is the real question.

~~~
awa
As they say, they contracted a independent contractor for the work, who
probably couldn't handle the task well and took too many code samples from
Plurk's source code

~~~
julio_the_squid
But for a new site to be released like this, either

a> MS does not review the work of their subcontractors, or

b> whomever reviewed the new site was not familiar with their major competitor
in the region.

Does either seem very likely?

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kogir
Is Plurk a major competitor? No offense to them but I hadn't heard about them
until today.

~~~
pyre
You've probably not heard of Orkut, but if you are Brazilian you have. While I
was in college chatting with my friends on AIM or ICQ, a lot of the non-US
work was moving from ICQ to MSN.

Lots of things can end up being popular on a mostly regional basis. I'm sure
there are many sites that are only popular to a specific locale that you've
never heard of.

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potatolicious
A good example is MSN vs. AIM in Canada. vs. the USA. I lived very close to
the border for a while, and it's pretty amazing how you can drive 20 minutes
in either direction, and the market share for the two services would
practically trade places.

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jac_no_k
related: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=994417>

