BEIJING (Sputnik) — China's Cyberspace Administration (CAC), the country's key internet regulator, has organized a team of investigators to probe the activities of its largest search engine Baidu over medicine advertisements that had allegedly led to the death of a student, local media said on Monday.
In March, the 21-year old Wei Zexi died of a rare form of cancer, synovial sarcoma, after receiving treatment at a hospital being advertised on Baidu. The student left a widely-circulated online post before his death, blaming the search engine for the deterioration of his health having undergone expensive treatment at the hospital.
Wei and those blaming Baidu for failing to check the credentials of advertisers have been pointing out that the hospital's paid-for link appeared high up in search results, while accurate information on its ineffective method of treatment, still undergoing medical trials in the United States, was not among the leading results.
The search engine responded by pledging to investigate the hospital's credentials, while the hospital responded by saying it shut its cancer treatment program on Monday.
