CCTV Expert Suggests Baidu Paid Search Should Be Illegal
CCTV, 8/19/11
China's national broadcaster CCTV's finance channel CCTV-2 broadcast another report on Baidu yesterday, interviewing a number of industry experts including ones who said that Baidu's paid search rankings business raised legal and ethical questions, and that paid search advertising should be made illegal.
Professor Guo He of Renmin University told CCTV reporters that Baidu's paid search rankings raised legal, ethical, and business-related problems, while Yang Lixin, director of Remin University's Civil & Commercial Law Research Center, said that Baidu's paid search rankings violated both market economy rules as well as ethical ones by providing users with false or misleading information.
Yang proposed that Chinese authorities enact new laws making paid search ranking ads illegal, and that China's industry and commerce authorities should consider all paid search ranking sites in violation of existing commercial regulations and penalize them accordingly.
Editor's Note: For more information on this topic, please see "CCTV Broadcasts Expose Targeting Baidu Post Bar," MD 8/18/11 issue, and "CCTV Expose Targets Baidu for Fraudulent Paid Search Ads," MD 8/16/11 issue.
Keywords: scandal online advertising Guo He Yang Lixin Internet law Baidu CCTV CCTV-2 Renmin University search advertising BIDU regulation online search
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