Benzinga | Oct 22, 2021 07:33AM EDT

Tencent Relaxes Selective Content Access Following Regulatory Crackdown: Bloomberg

* Tencent Holdings Ltd (OTC:TCEHY) owned WeChat content is now accessible to some search engines, including Alphabet Inc's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google, Microsoft Corp's (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing, Bloomberg reports.

* China has blocked Google in the country for quite some time now. WeChat content is still inaccessible to China's leading search engine company Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) and ByteDance Ltd.

* WeChat content was previously available via the app's native search function or on Tencent-controlled smaller engine Sogou.

* China's tech-industry overseer is considering asking media companies including Tencent and ByteDance to open up their content access to rivals in search results.

* The regulatory reflections currently focus on WeChat's public accounts, which allow individuals and businesses to publish articles on everything from films to football and foreign policy.

* Beijing has declared war on the so-called walled gardens of China's internet, accusing Tencent, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), and ByteDance of anticompetitive action by blocking rivals via WeChat, Taobao, Tmall, Douyin, and Toutiao.

* In September, Tencent allowed WeChat users to link to external services from rivals like Alibaba.

* Alibaba subsequently added WeChat's payment system to some of its apps.

* Price Action: TCEHY shares traded lower by 0.41% at $65 in the premarket session on the last check Friday.