Cari Internet Sdn. Bhd. is a Malaysian company founded in 1996. It operates the eponymous website Cari.com.my, the country's first search engine

Search engine

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...

 and web portal

Web portal

A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....

, along with online florist

Online flower delivery

Online flower delivery services are websites that allow consumers to order flowers and related items by browsing an online catalogue. They are often delivered to a third party, the recipient of the gift.-Local florist:...

 Flowers.com.my and web hosting service

Web hosting service

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet...

 Onnet. Cari Forum, a multilingual internet forum

Internet forum

An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...

, is a particularly popular portion of its website, and has been reported to be Malaysia's largest internet forum.

The word cari (IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...

: /tʃari/) means "search" in the Malay language

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

.

Business development

Cari was founded by Liew Chew-Keat (柳树吉). It was unique for its early provision of trilingual services: English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, Malay

Malay language

Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...

, and Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

. After its founding, Cari grew to become one of the country's top ten web portals, while maintaining tight control over costs. It received RM2.5 million (US$657,808) in venture capital

Venture capital

Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 funding from AKN.com in 2000 in exchange for a 15% stake, which was later transferred to Swansoft Technologies. The bursting of the dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

 actually aided Cari's cash flow, allowing it to cut advertising spending from RM450,000 in 2000 to just RM50,000 in 2001. However, it was still not profitable in 2001.

In 2003 Cari Internet announced the rollout of its in-house developed electronic commerce

Electronic commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

 platform, which partnered with local payment system Commerce Payment Sdn. Bhd. In 2008, it announced a partnership with local restaurant search startup FoodStreet, founded by local technologist and foodie

Foodie

Foodie is an informal term for a particular class of aficionado of food and drink. The word was coined in 1981 by Paul Levy and Ann Barr, who used it in the title of their 1984 book The Official Foodie Handbook.- Distinguished from gourmet :...

 Aidan Lee.

Legal disputes

In 2000, Cari Internet had a legal dispute with Catcha.com and considered suing the latter for copyright infringment. In 2008 Cari Internet was taken to court over postings made in its forum which allegedly defamed a manager of the Malaysian Chinese

Malaysian Chinese

Malaysian Chinese is a Malaysian of Chinese origin. Most are descendants of Chinese who arrived between the fifteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Within Malaysia, they are usually simply referred to as "Chinese" in all languages. The term Chinese Malaysian is also sometimes used to refer to...

 newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh

Kwong Wah Yit Poh

Kwong Wah Yit Poh or Kwong Wah Daily is a Malaysian Chinese daily that was founded in 20 December 1910 by Dr. Sun Yat Sen. The daily is based in Penang, where it has the largest readership in the northern region....

. Cari had refused to answer three letters from the manager alleging defamation and demanding that Cari disclose the identities of the posters who made the comments. The High Court

High Courts of Malaysia

The High Courts in Malaysia are the third-highest courts in the hierarchy of courts, after the Federal Court and the Court of Appeal. Article 121 of the Constitution of Malaysia provides that there shall be two High Courts of coordinate jurisdiction—the High Court in Malaya and the High Court...

 at George Town

George Town, Penang

George Town was voted as one of the best cities in Asia by Asiaweek, ranked 6th in 1998 and 9th in 2000. More recently, George Town has improved a notch to rank as the 9th most liveable city in Asia in a survey of 254 cities worldwide according to an international location ratings survey by , an...

 ordered Cari to disclose the requested information and pay court costs for the complainant.

Traffic and rankings

According to Effective Measure October 2010 rankings, cari.com.my was the 19th-most popular website among Malaysia's 17 million internet users. Alexa Internet

Alexa Internet

Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...

's rankings placed it slightly higher at #16. Their forums attracted roughly five million unique visitors each month , 70% on the Chinese-language version.