Baidu Initiates Immediate Steps To Enhance Online Marketing Services And User Experience

Baidu Inc. BIDU disclosed that it has taken immediate steps to improve its online marketing services, as well as, user experience. According to the company, it would continue to take measures to comply with the requests from the PRC regulators.

Baidu said that apart from the actions requested by the regulators, it plans to set aside RMB1.0 billion for the purpose of compensating users, who proves that they were harmed by fraudulent marketing information.

Some of the steps that the company took immediately were the modification of its practice in offering online marketing services to medical, health care, pharmaceutical and other similar businesses. It would also refrain from offering online marketing services to medical organizations, which did not have the proper qualifications from the competent regulators.

The Chinese firm also indicated its preference to modify its current auction-based paid search practices. That included using ‘credibility' and reputation of listed parties as big factors to rank search results before the current month ends. Similarly, it would create and improve user protection tools. That included establishing channels for users to make complaints, handle them efficiently, cancelling services immediately if it found any unlawful or non-compliant information in search results.

These efforts were taken after the company was examined by the regulators on its search ranking practices following news reports amidst public comments. The regulatory authorities like the Cyberspace Administration of China, the National Health and Family Planning Commission, and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce sent their representatives to Baidu and examined the company's business practices for regulatory compliance.

The Chinese firm said it was fully committed to social responsibility and would continue to enhance its business practices in line with its status as the leading Chinese language Internet search provider.

On Tuesday, the stock traded 2.04 percent down.