Tencent Relaxes Selective Content Access Following Regulatory Crackdown: Bloomberg
Tencent Holdings Ltd (OTC: TCEHY) owned WeChat content is now accessible to some search engines, including Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) Google, Microsoft Corp's (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bing, Bloomberg reports.
China has blocked Google in the country for quite some time now. WeChat content is still inaccessible to China's leading search engine company Baidu Inc (NASDAQ: BIDU) and ByteDance Ltd.
WeChat content was previously available via the app's native search function or on Tencent-controlled smaller engine Sogou.
China's tech-industry overseer is considering asking media companies including Tencent and ByteDance to open up their content access to rivals in search results.
The regulatory reflections currently focus on WeChat's public accounts, which allow individuals and businesses to publish articles on everything from films to football and foreign policy.
Beijing has declared war on the so-called walled gardens of China's internet, accusing Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE: BABA), and ByteDance of anticompetitive action by blocking rivals via WeChat, Taobao, Tmall, Douyin, and Toutiao.
In September, Tencent allowed WeChat users to link to external services from rivals like Alibaba.
Alibaba subsequently added WeChat's payment system to some of its apps.
Price Action: TCEHY shares traded lower by 0.41% at $65 in the premarket session on the last check Friday.
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