Apparently, some assholes in China took out ads, claiming to have a surgical cure for cancer. A 21 yr old student with cancer took them up on the offer and died as a result. As such, a firestorm erupted over the wanton depravity and savagery taking place on the BIDU search engine. Government officials have caved into the public pressures and have placed restrictions on the amount of lying that is permitted to take place online.
The restrictions mean the company must clean up in-search healthcare adverts and paid-for search adverts of any kind cannot only be based on the highest bidder, a statement from the internet, industry and health regulators which was posted on the website of the Cyberspace Administration of China said.
Such adverts must be restricted to no more than 30 percent of a page of search results, the statement said.
“If they do enforce that, it would likely significantly cut into revenues,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting.
A spokeswoman for Baidu said it accepted the regulator’s decision and will firmly implement the requirements on it following the in-search adverts investigation.
Baidu has come in for fierce online criticism for how it handles adverts within its search results.
Before his death, 21-year-old student Wei Zexi not only criticized the military-run hospital that provided the failed treatment for misleading claims about its effectiveness but also alleged that Baidu, which controls 80 percent of the Chinese search market, had promoted false medical information.
Shares of BIDU are lower by $9 or 5% in the premarket.
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The whole country is a shit-fest of corruption.