Baidu targets false ads
Internet giant is tackling illegal, misleading search results on its site
Chinese internet search giant Baidu Inc has ramped up efforts to remove false advertisements and misleading information from its search results, after it was criticized for influencing users’ choices by letting through fake medical advertisements two years ago.
Last year, Baidu rejected 2.13 billion harmful advertisements, and blocked a total of 460,000 keywords, among which nearly 230,000 have been blacklisted for medical malpractice, accounting for 50 percent of the total.
It has dealt with 60 million pieces of false promotional medical information, with a focus on combating medical fraud, illegal advertising and other illegal behaviors, by virtue of utilizing its big data, deep learning and artificial intelligence technologies.
By Sept 14, Baidu had protected more than 20,000 trademarks, 4,000 of which it categorizes as well-known.
It has also launched a public hospital brand protection program, with protected data points including their full names, abbreviations and addresses.
In 2016, China’s internet regulator ordered Baidu to strictly limit advertising per page and clean up its medicalrelated paid-search business. The action followed public outrage over the death of a 21-year-old computer science student, Wei Zexi, who used Baidu to search for a cancer treatment that turned out to be a hoax.
Chinese authorities have formulated a series of cyber regulations to protect online users’ interests and better guide the development of internet-related industries. According to the Cyberspace Administration of China’s regulations covering search engines, search providers must ensure objective, fair and authoritative search results, and remove any illegal content that could harm national interests and people’s lawful rights.
The regulations stipulate that search engines must change their paid-for listings model and rank search results according to credibility rather than price-tag. All paid-for listings must be labeled clearly, so that they are distinguishable from normal search results, and the returned content should not mislead users.
Chen Yinjiang, deputy sec“Driven retary-general of the China Consumer Protection Law Society, said the spread of false advertising has seriously violated consumers’ legitimate rights and fair market competition.
by huge potential interests, some internet companies allow misleading online information and fake advertisements to reach consumers. In terms of search engines, users currently lack an adequate range of choice and therefore it is difficult to avoid such risks,” Chen said.
According to Chen, Baidu should take on its social responsibility and implement more effective measures to protect consumers, as it still faces accusations of altering search results to feature entities that have paid money to gain high rankings for their sites.
Chen cited the current regulations published by the State Administration of Market Regulation, claiming advertisements and paid search results must be distinctively marked so consumers can easily identify them.
“The government should take the initiative to enhance supervision and strengthen law enforcement, such as by making more specific and detailed standards and toughening penalties for false advertising,” Chen said.
“More efforts are also needed to grow more companies in the search engine market, which will offer consumers more choice and promote healthy competition.”
The government should take the initiative to enhance supervision and strengthen law enforcement ...”
Chen Yinjiang, deputy secretary-general of the China Consumer Protection Law Society