Baidu digging a grave for itself

ON TUESDAY a post with the headline "Baidu as a search engine is dead already" created a buzz on social media, as it blamed the Chinese-language search giant for artificially controlling the search results so that articles from its own affiliated website Baijiahao appear among the first listings. China Daily writer Zhang Zhouxiang comments:

By Wednesday, the topic "Baidu is dead" had already been read 79 million times on micro blog, China's equivalent to Twitter. Of the about 9,000 comments on the issue, more than 8,000 said they faced similar problems when using Baidu to search something. Some even said the first three pages are full of useless information from Baijiahao that they have to spend a lot of time and energy to find their really needed results.

Baidu responded that articles from Baijiahao account for less than 10 percent of the total search results. Later, its Chief Executive Officer Shen Ke said the company does not regret what it has done, and said it is helping to make the internet better.

Yet neither the company nor the executive explained why most of these 10 percent appear on the first one or two pages of the search results.

Some netizens defended Baidu by saying that a commercial company has the right to recommend its own businesses. That sounds reasonable but is actually rather absurd, because a search engine is also a public good, not a purely commercial product.

That applies especially in Baidu's case because the company has almost monopolized the Chinese-language online search market. If it prioritizes its own interests in the search results it provides, that will hurt the interests of normal users.

Besides, Baidu is suspected of breaking the regulation of the Cyberspace Administration of China, which states that search engines should provide fair, just and trustable search results.

It is time for Baidu to sincerely correct its wrongdoings.