Baidu suffers ‘poisoned milk’ backlash
p2pnet news view | Advertising:- The mainstream media have picked up the story of China search engine Baidu’s involvement in the poisoned milk scandal.
The Sanlu case, “is particularly alarming because the recall took so long and apparently required the intervention of the New Zealand government, which was alerted by Sanlu’s New Zealand-based partner, Fonterra,” said p2pnet on Thursday, quoting The Guardian
“And in the middle of it all is China search engine Baidu, with the question being asked whether or not it ‘managed’ search results containing negative news about the Sanlu baby-milk scandal,” said our post.
More than 6,200 babies developed kidney stones after drinking Sanlu’s baby formula, tainted with the chemical melamine, admitted official China state news agency Xinhua.
Now, “Chinese Internet-search giant Baidu.com Inc. has become embroiled in a public backlash over tainted milk, in a sign that fast growth and market dominance have a flip side for a company sometimes called the ‘Google of China’,” says the Wall Street Journal, going on:
Ironically, Google once owned shares in Baidu.
“There is no proof that Baidu played a part in concealing the discovery,” says thing WSJ, continuing »»»
But observers of China’s lucrative Internet business said Baidu’s online antagonists present another challenge for a company that is already grappling with tighter privacy restrictions and increasingly vocal competitors.
It also shines a light on Baidu’s business practices. Unlike Google Inc., which places paid search results outside of the main search listings, Baidu allows advertisers to pay their way up to higher positions within search results.
[...] »»»
The Chinese company integrates paid advertisements into its regular search listings to a greater extent than most search engines, though it started adding a small two-character tag to identify the ads after users complained. Baidu doesn’t use a different background color as Google does to distinguish paid ads, and for a popular search term such as “mobile phone,” paid results take up almost the entire first page.
In an, “unusual move for a government that itself is routinely accused of online censorship,” China, “utilized its official New China News Agency (Xinha) to help publicize the attempted bribery,” says the Washington Post, quoting Li Fangping, a Beijing-based attorney who’s volunteered his services to parents, as saying:
“Things are quite different this time. Civil society is responding more quickly, which I think is forcing the government to respond differently.”
p2pnet - Baidu in China Sanlu poisoned milk scandal, September 18, 2008
The Guardian -China tainted milk scandal spreads to ice cream and yoghur, September 18, 2008
Xinhua - Sacked Sanlu chairwoman removed from local legislature over baby formula scandal, September 18, 2008
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September 20th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
If the Wall Street Journal had a better finger on the pulse, and better investigation skills they would not have used a throwaway comment like ““There is no proof that Baidu played a part in concealing the discovery,” says WSJ. It’s patently obvious what’s going on with Baidu to those in the industry….the going rate is reported to be RMB 5 mil for deletion of negative news links by Baidu.
The Washington Post report also blindly accepted Baidu’s laughable statement that it was “revealing the whole truth to all,”
And if they had done further research, they could also have uncovered the illegal music scam perpetrated by Baidu which was instead reported by The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/13/baidu_investigation/)
September 20th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Seems like the bloggers are asking all the hard questions, while the institutions like WSJ and Washington Post are soft!!
September 20th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
A whole litany of accusations against Baidu include: illegal music file hosting, threatening editors of news sites to delete articles unfavourable to Baidu, click fraud, deleting negative news links about Baidu from search results, accepting payments from other companies to delete unfavorable news, click fraud, denial-of-service attacks and then some more!
How many of these have been investigated thoroughly by the likes of WSJ? Babies have died, and more cases could have been prevented if a major search engine like Baidu had not blocked news items until Sep 12. It was blogger power that revealed the extent of the damage that was initially censored by Baidu, and it was the force of blogger revelations that probably forced Baidu’s hands into realizing the futility of going down with the Sanlu milk cart and promptly opened their news sluice gates again.
While the poisoned milk was being spilt, the Financial Times was instead feting the fact that Baidu was one of 5 companies globally that have defied Google in the latter’s quest for absolute global domination.
There has not been any penetrative investigations by any of the major international publications on Baidu’s role in this whole baby-killing affair - they have instead merely been reduced to serving as echo-chambers of Baidu’s hollow press release denials…
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:14 am
In China the Internet has become a new frontier in the fight for human rights.
Internet censorship helps the Chinese authorities to hide the true extent of human rights abuses - like their use of the death penalty, torture and detention without trial and the persecution of human rights defenders.
The Internet should be a medium for the freedom of expression, not repression.
http://uncensor.com.au