In recent years, with the surge in personal cloud storage needs, Baidu Netdisk has become the preferred storage platform for domestic users. However, this favored tech giant has frequently been embroiled in privacy and security controversies.
Unbound Old Numbers Pose Privacy Leak Risks
On October 14th, a news item titled "Woman's Photos Leaked Due to Unbound Netdisk After Cellphone Number Cancellation" made it to the top of Weibo's trending topics. According to reports, after a woman in Guangzhou canceled her cellphone number, the new user of the number was still able to log in to her Baidu Netdisk account, view her photos, private information, and contacts, and harassed her multiple times.
This incident highlights the vulnerabilities in Baidu Netdisk's user management and data protection mechanisms. Once a user fails to unbind associated accounts in a timely manner after changing their cellphone number, the new number holder can easily access the previous owner's personal data.
In response to this incident, Baidu Netdisk's customer service stated that users can enable login protection features to perform identity verification when logging in from a different location or through a web page. However, this suggestion does not fundamentally address the security risks users may face after canceling their cellphone numbers.
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This is not the first time Baidu Netdisk has been caught up in user privacy and security controversies. In August 2022, netizens reported that Baidu Netdisk had a practice of manual photo review, which attracted widespread attention. Although Baidu Netdisk denied the allegations at the time, the incident still revealed potential risks in the platform's user privacy protection.
As one of the largest personal cloud storage service providers in the country, Baidu Netdisk has a massive user base. According to the latest data released, as of September 2022, Baidu Netdisk has surpassed 800 million users, with a total data storage volume exceeding 100 billion GB, growing at an average annual rate of 60%. Baidu Netdisk helps users improve the efficiency of learning, work, and life through a total of 150 million consumer-grade IoT devices, including smartwatches, car machines, and earphones.
Such a vast amount of user data poses a serious challenge to Baidu Netdisk's information security management. Privacy protection experts recommend that the platform should adopt stricter security measures, such as strengthening account and device binding, and improving identity verification mechanisms. At the same time, users should also raise their security awareness, promptly unbind unused cellphone numbers, regularly update passwords, and be cautious when sharing sensitive information.
Speed Limiting "Intractable Disease" Remains Unresolved, "Russian Doll" Charging Controversy Continues
In November 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in conjunction with eight major netdisk companies, formulated a self-discipline convention, requiring that under the same network access conditions, provide undifferentiated upload/download rate services for all types of users. Baidu Netdisk and other eight companies committed to launching "undifferentiated rate" products within the year.However, according to a report by Times Weekly, nearly a month after the regulatory authorities intervened, the download speed of Baidu Netdisk only saw a slight increase, and downloading larger files remained laborious. Some users reported that "without purchasing a Super VIP membership, the download speed was limited to only 100-200 KB/s, and sometimes even 60 KB/s."
Even by 2024, it appears that the issue of speed limits has not been completely resolved. As reported by Kuai Technology, in mid-September of this year, China Unicom Beijing and Huawei officially launched a 10-gigabit broadband service. A Beijing user, while using the 10-gigabit broadband, encountered a Baidu Netdisk that had not activated a VIP account, with a download speed of only 40-70 KB/s, which is only 0.005% of the performance of the 10-gigabit broadband.
In addition to the speed limit issue, Baidu Netdisk's charging model has also sparked user dissatisfaction. According to a report by Shell Finance, some users have reported being charged for both Baidu Netdisk VIP and Super VIP SVIP memberships under the same account.
The user stated that in January of this year, due to an urgent need, she activated both Baidu Netdisk VIP and SVIP memberships, choosing a one-month payment model. However, on May 11th, she suddenly received a charge notice of 44 yuan, and upon inquiry, she found that it was a simultaneous charge of 19 yuan for VIP membership and 25 yuan for SVIP membership. What is even more puzzling is that the user has not used Baidu Netdisk again after completing the urgent task, yet has been continuously charged for five months.
In response, Baidu Netdisk customer service stated that VIP and SVIP are independent services that can be subscribed and renewed simultaneously, but the higher-level membership service will take effect first. This explanation has not been able to quell external doubts, with some users believing that this practice is suspected of "Russian doll charging."
Many users also reported that it is very difficult to cancel the automatic renewal of Baidu Netdisk. Some users said that there is no particularly obvious "automatic renewal management" button within the Baidu Netdisk App, and every time they want to cancel the membership, they have to first search online for the method of cancellation.
According to the "Network Transaction Supervision and Management Measures," operators of automatic renewal services should prominently remind consumers to pay attention five days before renewal. However, some users said they did not receive any renewal reminders.
Faced with various user doubts, Baidu Netdisk has not yet made a positive response. How to find a balance between providing high-quality services and protecting user rights will be an urgent problem that the company needs to solve.
Can the readjustment of the netdisk business reverse the decline in performance?
Recently, Baidu's Intelligent Cloud Business Group (ACG) has completed a new round of organizational restructuring, among which the changes in Baidu Netdisk business have attracted much attention.According to reports from Jiemian News, Baidu's cloud storage C-side business has recently been reassigned to the Mobile Ecosystem Business Group (MEG), managed by Wang Ying, Vice President of Baidu and head of the Wenku Business Unit. The toB business continues to operate within the ACG.
This marks the second adjustment of Baidu's cloud storage business within two years. In May 2022, Baidu's cloud storage was reassigned to ACG along with the rotation of Senior Vice President Shen Dou. A source close to Baidu told Jiemian News, "Cloud storage was not suitable to be placed in ACG; the two could not achieve a 1+1>2 effect."
As one of Baidu's important businesses, Baidu's cloud storage has always been a focus. According to the latest data, as of September 2022, the number of Baidu cloud storage users has exceeded 800 million, and the total amount of user-stored data has surpassed 100 billion GB. However, despite the large user base, Baidu's cloud storage has not performed as well as expected in terms of commercialization.
At the "Baidu World Conference" held in October 2023, Baidu founder, chairman, and CEO Robin Li stated that products such as Baidu's cloud storage have completed AI reconstruction. The reconstructed Baidu cloud storage has transitioned from graphical user interface interaction to natural language interaction and has enhanced multimodal information understanding. The personal cloud intelligent assistant for Baidu's cloud storage, "Yun Yi Duo," can accurately locate videos, summarize video content with one click, and extract key phrases. The number of Yun Yi Duo users has reached 20 million.
On the other hand, Baidu's financial report for the second quarter of 2024 shows that Baidu's net profit attributable to the company is 5.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%. The revenue for the quarter was 33.931 billion yuan, slightly down from 34.056 billion yuan in the same period last year, marking the first year-on-year decline since the third quarter of 2022.
Among them, Baidu's largest source of income—online advertising business revenue—was 19.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2%. Robin Li stated during the second-quarter earnings call that the advertising business is facing a series of external pressures. At the same time, Baidu's active promotion of AI innovation in its search business has also created significant internal pressure. Currently, 18% of Baidu's search results are provided by generative AI, but this part of the business has not yet been monetized.
In this context, Baidu's readjustment of its cloud storage business may reflect the company's urgent need to reverse the decline in performance. At the "2023 Baidu World Conference," Robin Li also stated, "Over the past decade, Baidu has defined what cloud storage is; in the next decade, Baidu will use AI to redefine a new cloud storage."
However, looking at the present, the fog of privacy issues needs to be cleared, and the stubborn disease of speed limits needs to be completely cured. Can Baidu's cloud storage reshape its reputation in the trust crisis? Can it "use AI to redefine a new cloud storage" in the next decade? All of this will depend on its every step moving forward.