Rakuten in the company in August 2007 and, in 2010, it announced a joint venture with Baidu in China (Lekutian). In June 2011, Rakuten acquired Brazilian e-commerce firm Ikeda — since renamed Rakuten Brazil. In July, it bought German e-commerce start-up Tradoria and rebranded it Rakuten Deutschland, and in September UK online retailer and e-commerce marketplace Play.com for £25 million (almost $41 million), which was converted into the points-based loyalty program Rakuten.co.uk. In September 2011, Rakuten took a minority equity stake in Russian online retailer Ozon.ru, dubbed "Russia's Amazon", which had reported 2010 sales worth US$137 million. A four-company-strong consortium, led
UK Online and heavy users were moved onto so called "bad boy pipes" (although this did not appear to happen with LLU connections). Since the regulatory approval of ADSL2+ technology in the UK, "UK Online" were able to offer services with speeds up to 22MB, and were one of the first companies to do so on a national scale. This was still based on the "Easynet" LLU coverage however. In October 2005 BSkyB purchased "Easynet" and so now also owned "UK Online", however "UK Online" continued to exist as a separate entity from Sky Broadband. In January 2008 Easynet Connect was launched