Online search listings should be regulated by Advertising Law

Flowers are laid in front of the tombstone of Wei Zexi in Xianyang, Shaanxi province, on May 3, 2016. [Photo/IC]

ON MONDAY, investigators looking at the role played by the search engine Baidu in the death of a college student announced their conclusions. A comment on ifeng.com said on Tuesday:

Some analysts have tried excusing Baidu for its faults, claiming Wei made the decision to go to the hospital and Baidu only offered search listings.

They should read the conclusion of the investigators, namely that Baidu's paid rankings, from which it profited by listing search results according to the money companies paid, had a decisive influence on Wei's decision.

Such paid rankings could affect anybody. Baidu said they have canceled 126 million pieces of paid information, which come from 2,518 medical institutions. How many victims were there because of decisions made on this information, which was never verified?

Merely canceling the paid medical listings is not enough. The key to preventing more scandals is to change the mode of paid rankings, which is currently a profit-making model of Baidu. As Baidu remains a monopoly in the domestic search engine market, paid listings on its webpages might adversely influence many patients, and help unqualified hospitals prosper.

More importantly, the investigators did not define paid ranking as advertising. Actually, Baidu takes money from hospitals and mixes their information with normal search results, with only very small indications to alert viewers to the fact they are paid rankings. Online search listings should be regulated by the Advertising Law. Consumers that are misguided by Baidu's paid rankings should have the right to take the company to court.

Baidu's high executives might never have expected the scandal ignited by Wei's death could become so influential. Now it has expressed "strong support" for the authorities' requirements, and we hope it will truly correct its wrongdoings. Wei's tragedy should not be repeated.