TikTok owner ByteDance quietly launches search app Wukong in China, where Google is banned

ByteDance’s promise of no ads on Wukong could be seen as a swipe at market leader Baidu, which has faced years of controversy over paid listings

The app is the TikTok owner’s second go at a dedicated search product, which comes within days of Tencent shutting down its Sogou search app

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Published: 7:00am, 24 Aug 2022

ByteDance, owner of the hit short video app TikTok, has quietly launched a new search engine that promises no advertisements in a cyberspace where Google has not been available for more than a decade.

Without any announcement, ByteDance subsidiary Beijing Infinite Dimension Technology launched the Wukong search app this month, within days of Tencent Holdings shutting down on August 8 its Sogou search app. Sogou, which Tencent bought last year, still maintains its web-based search engine.

Wukong, currently available on Apple’s App Store in China and various Chinese Android app stores, brings ByteDance into closer competition with Baidu, China’s dominant search engine.

The new app promotes itself as providing “quality information and search without ads”. The line could be interpreted as an indirect jab at Baidu, which has long faced criticism for its paid listings in search results. In 2016, 21-year-old college student Wei Zexi died of a rare cancer after he received experimental treatments recommended by Baidu.

ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some search results easily illustrate the different approaches in the two apps. On Baidu, the first three search results for “double eyelid”, a biological feature that many Asians associate with beauty, were all ads for plastic surgery clinics. Wukong results were just tips and knowledge from doctors.

Like other popular search engines, Wukong includes different search categories, such as news, images and video. It also allows users to bookmark pages and features an “incognito mode” like in web browsers that does not save search history.

However, similar to Baidu, Wukong tends to prioritise its owner’s other products, a practice known as “self-preferencing” that has invited political scrutiny of Big Tech firms overseas but remains common in China.

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TikTok owner ByteDance quietly launches search app Wukong in China, where Google is banned

ByteDance’s promise of no ads on Wukong could be seen as a swipe at market leader Baidu, which has faced years of controversy over paid listings The app is the TikTok owner’s second go at a dedicated search product, which comes within days of Tencent shutting down its Sogou search app

ByteDance’s promise of no ads on Wukong could be seen as a swipe at market leader Baidu, which has faced years of controversy over paid listings

The app is the TikTok owner’s second go at a dedicated search product, which comes within days of Tencent shutting down its Sogou search app