Google Apologizes For Copying Data

Google has issued an apology to Sohu.com for similarities between Chinese language software it recently released and software offered by the Chinese Web portal company.

The software in question is Google's Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME), which Google made available last week. The software lets users enter Chinese characters using Roman alphabet characters on a standard computer keyboard.

In a post on Google China's blog -- algorithmically translated by Google.com -- Google acknowledges that a thesaurus integrated into its Pinyin software "does contain some non-Google data sources." Google says that it addressed the issue in a software update published yesterday.

"We are willing to face this issue of ours. While we apologize for the inconvenience this may have incurred to users and Sohu, we have also adopted immediate actions," Google said in a statement cited by Reuters.

Google's English translation of its Chinese apology is less comprehensible: "We are willing to face up to their problems, such as Sohu said it apologized to customers."

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.