Is Google Pinyin Stolen from Sogou?

Few days ago,I briefly introduced Chinese Input Method Editor (IME) when it was just released,and in that post I also suggested there were a number of people who showed great interested in it.After testing for three days and communicating with other bloggers on this product,I think it's time to say something about Google Pinyin.

First of all,there are words saying the Google Pinyin stolen the vocabulary library from their rival Sogou Pinyin which has been released in June 2006.You can refer to articles here , here and here.One of the obvious evidents is the odd error that will occur in both IME:

Users noted that entering the Pinyin "pinggong" into the Google IME incorrectly produced the name of Feng Gong, an actor and comedian. Despite Google saying it had updated the software, the error appeared not to have been corrected as of Friday afternoon in Beijing. via

In my mind,it's no doubt of Guge's theft,but some Gfans still argued(in Chinese) that both Guge and Sogou's vocabulary were generated from their own search results(sogou provide search engine service too) so the similarities just means the netizens prefer to search similar keywords.Is that true?No authority is willing to directly answer this question.

The truths that I can confirm are:

• Guge staff evade this query
• Sogou has opened vocabulary for download long before,here and here .Oh,there is an license for using.
  
• Sogou Pinyin engineer wrote a post How the Sogou Pinyin Vocabulary was Made(in Chinese) introducing the great work they've done for accuracy vocabulary(which was stolen by Guge with ease?),we can take this article as an response though there is no word about Google or Guge.
• The second version (1.0.16.0) of Guge Pinyin has a update on the vocabulary.Basically,fixed the "bugs" of some similarities vocabulary,but the odd error of "pinggong" is still there.

OK,Gfans may ask:"Even if Guge has stolen the vocabulary from Sogou,does it matter?" I will say "Yes".May be Chinese netizens have used to the scandal news from Internet Companies,and take the nasty affairs as routine issues.But don't forget,Guge is a subsidiary of Google which prossess the famous motto - "Don't be evil".

This time,I believe Guge really do evil under the name of Google China.

Update：Guge put an announcement in China portal site NetEase, admitting their vocabulary was coming from third party (Sogou).


Technorati Tags: guge, IME, google, china, don't be evil, sogou, theft