Using online tools to estimate the geographic and demographic profile of potential business software piracy in China

Abstract

This analysis attempts to illustrate geographic and demographic drivers of internet-enabled piracy in China using publicly available data on internet searches provided by Google and Baidu, China’s most prominent search engine. Using a basket of search terms selected because they appear to be reasonably associated with the piracy of business software, we find substantial regional variation in the propensity to conduct internet searches in China that are related to software piracy. Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces appear to be the locations with the largest amount of piracy-related internet searches, based on Google data. In other locations, particularly China’s western provinces, internet users appear substantially less likely to conduct piracy-related internet searches, even when the results are weighted to take into account lower internet populations. Based on Baidu data, our results also suggest that piracy-related searches are disproportionately performed by 20- to 29-year-old male college-educated students and by information technology (IT) workers. The approach described in this article may yield valuable insights on the demographic characteristics of internet piracy in China.