Why Edge 124.0.2478.51 is inserting referral code for Baidu?

Baidu is one of the most commonly used search engines in China.

However, Edge 124.0.2478.51 is automatically inserting referral code (?tn=68018901_16_pg) for Baidu through homepage and auto suggestion in the address bar. This behavior is probably in the grayscale testing phase, so not everyone on this version will witness this behavior. And only users with GeoID (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\Geo) set to China CN will be affected.

I'll illustrate two examples how Edge is inserting referral code automatically.

For example, when you start Edge directly, the homepage it first opens up will be "https://www.baidu.com/?tn=68018901_16_pg" even if you set it to be "https://www.baidu.com/" in the settings.

Another example is that if you typed "baidu.c" in the address bar, the auto suggestion would suggest "https://www.baidu.com/?tn=68018901_16_pg" even if this is not in your history or favorites.

So, I'm wondering why Edge is doing so? Is this the development team's intended behavior? Can I turn off this behavior directly?

This behavior is actually violating my rights to choose my own homepage and misleading us to visit Baidu with this referral code through auto suggestion.

I'm definitely sure this is NOT caused by other programs or configuration on my PC, rather it is caused by Edge itself, as the referral code and a kill switch to turn off this behavior has been found in the `msedge.dll` file.

Edge Version: 124.0.2478.51
Filename: msedge.dll
Path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\124.0.2478.51
SHA1: 1902C3088DAC60B6FA23B5099B6F231C1874DCAB
SHA256: 3D2061D843F330AB260B5E5640038DB3AE4D87A254F621ADC150C356109EF77C

The referral code is found in the `msedge.dll` file offset 0xe186ea0

A switch called `msInsertBaiduCode` is found in the `msedge.dll` file offset 0xf151040

I really hope that you could explain why Edge is compiled with this behavior, and you could supply a method to turn off this behavior.

Hope to hear from you soon.