
Photo: VCG
Applying to college is hard work — and doing a seemingly convenient online search for admissions websites might make things even harder, if you’re a recent Chinese high-school graduate.
Major search engines Baidu and Qihoo 360, along with a number of competitors, were summoned to a meeting with China’s Ministry of Education Wednesday for allegedly leading students to fraudulent web pages and ads instead of the college admissions sites they were searching for, the ministry said. The ministry demanded that the search engines start identifying the official websites of education and exam authorities, and prioritize them in search results.
Results from China’s national college entrance examination, the gaokao, were released in late June. This means high-school graduates are now in the process of submitting their scores to universities. Several provinces, including Shanxi, have suggested that candidates avoid using search engines and directly type out official URLs instead.
This isn’t the first time misleading search results and advertising practices have put Chinese search engines in the spotlight. In 2016, a promoted search result on Baidu led the 21-year-old cancer patient Wei Zexi to an experimental treatment program, which caused his eventual death. The incident, which provoked public outcry, put the internet company’s ethics under scrutiny and pushed the Chinese government to further regulate online advertising.
Related: Baidu Accused of Giving Self-Serving Search Results in Viral Post


