Such prohibitions have been long in place, but it is the first time China explicitly regulates paid search results. China issued new regulations on Saturday demanding search engines clearly identify paid search results, months after a terminally-ill cancer patient complained that he was misled by the giant search engine Baidu. The administration said search engines must review the qualifications of paying clients, clearly identify paid results, and limit the number of paid results on a web page. When Wei's post became publicly known in May, Baidu was widely denounced for its practice of blurring promotional search results with legitimate ones on the home search page. Baidu on Saturday responded by pledging to work with regulators and web users in providing objective, fair, and trustworthy search results, according to Chinese media.

Source: ABC News June 25, 2016 04:18 UTC