Google has attempted to quell a dust-up over its new Pinyin Input Method Editor (IME), a tool that automatically converts Pinyin Roman entries to their Chinese character equivalents, by admitting that it used a database created by another company. Sohu.com, which offers a similar application, accused Google of lifting the database from its Sogou search engine after users discovered and began talking about the similarities.
In a post on the Google China blog, Google apologized for misappropriating the database. "We are willing to face up to our mistake, and offered an apology to users and to Sohu.com," said Google. According to the search giant, the database has since been replaced with a version culled from its own Chinese-language search engine.
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