In fact, it already apparently has: In August, after Baidu first listed on the Nasdaq exchange, the China Internet Network Information Center said the company enjoyed 38% of the local search market, with Beijing-based portal Sohu coming in second at 19.6%--and Google having a paltry 12.6% of users.

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He also wrote about software agents that go out into the network and come back with any information you want. (Sound a little like a search engine?) Bear and Benford also created fictional global networks long before the World Wide Web was a gleam in the eye of its creator Tim Berners Lee.

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