After student’s death, China regulator slams Baidu and its paid search results

Photo credit: U.S. Pacific Fleet.

Weeks after being implicated in the death of a 21-year-old cancer patient, China’s top search engine has today been slammed by authorities over its paid search results.

Wei Zexi, a college student, got an experimental treatment for his rare form of cancer at a private hospital he found via Baidu. In a post written shortly before his death, Wei said he was misled about the controversial treatment he was being given – which cost just over $30,000 – and that the tech giant was partly to blame as he had found the hospital through Baidu’s search. China’s Internet regulator launched an investigation as Baidu was roundly condemned by web users.

The inquiry’s report, released this afternoon by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), states that Baidu gives excessive space to paid search results – and they’re not clearly marked enough, Caixin reports.

Wei Zexi’s parents holding a framed photo of their son, who died of a rare form of cancer after receiving ineffective treatment at a Beijing hospital. Photo credit: Global Times on Twitter.

Sponsored links must not take up more than 30 percent of the space on the page.

The regulator said that Baidu cannot just think of which advertiser is the highest bidder – it has a responsibility to display only good quality healthcare adverts in its search results. Sponsored links must not take up more than 30 percent of the space on the page, CAC warned, and there needs to be a better crowdsourced reporting system for people to flag dodgy paid links.

Baidu has been given until May 31 to clean up its act, though it’s not clear what the consequences might be for failing to do so. The company said prior to the inquiry that it does screen paid search results for healthcare providers, and that the hospital at which Wei died after receiving poor treatment was approved to appear on the website after the normal review procedure.

Baidu, which has over 600 million users across China, is reliant on advertising for revenue, with medicines and healthcare providers representing a not inconsequential slice of its income.

Source: Caixin