Chinese search engine Baidu.com (BIDU) has released its video standard and has been criticized of trying to monopolize the video search sector.

Under Baidu's new standard, which is called Internet Video Frequency Open Protocol, each website is asked to make their video content XML compliant so that the content can be included into Baidu' search engine index. Local media report that some webmasters and industry analysts are complaining that this new standard gives an unfair advantage to Baidu and also creates problems for website owners.

Xu Jiye, a representative from Baidu's marketing department, denies that Baidu will monopolize the industry with the standard. He says that Baidu's standard is only a recommendation for the industry and many other websites have attempted similar schemes. However, Xu adds that websites that fail to comply with Baidu's own standard will miss the opportunity of having their content appear within the search engine, which many surveys put at the top of China's search engine industry.

Baidu's Marketing Supervisor Bian Jian also emphasizes that this standard will not force the websites to make any major changes in their structure, except that they need to change the format of how their content is presented in the markup language.

Baidu previously issued a similar standard called Internet News Open Protocol for its news aggregation website.