Post prompts China to tighten Web rules

BEIJING — China issued new regulations Saturday demanding that search engines clearly identify paid search results, months after a terminally ill cancer patient said he was misled by the giant search engine Baidu.

Wei Zexi, a college student who died in April of a rare cancer, wrote a long post on a Chinese website detailing how he was led to a Beijing hospital for treatment after searching on Baidu. He said the treatment was ineffective and expensive and that, later, he learned the therapy was not fully approved.

Wei accused Baidu of taking money to promote less-proven treatments.

The Cyberspace Administration of China on its website announced the new regulations, which also ban search engines from showing subversive content and obscene information. Such prohibitions have long been in place, but it is the first time China explicitly regulated paid search results.

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.

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