State-owned telecom China Unicom has confirmed the order came from within the government, which said it had spotted "illegal content" on the search engine, though it's still unclear what triggered the ban because China's Cyberspace Administration has refused to comment. However, the New York Times pointed out that the ban followed a viral social media post by former journalist Fang Kecheng, who accused dominant Chinese search engine Baidu - which sops up 70% of China's search traffic - of favoring its own products in its search results. The viral post is believed to have driven more traffic to Bing. [zerohedge]