Baidu cuts paid ads after user dies, shares fall

Baidu cuts paid ads after user dies, shares fall

A woman is silhouetted against the Baidu logo in Shanghai. Shares of Baidu closed down more than 2 percent Monday after Chinese regulators announced limits on the company's lucrative health care advertisements. The restrictions came in response to public outcry over the death of a student who underwent experimental cancer treatment he found through the search engine's ads. ‹ › Health care provides 20 to 30 percent of the company's ad-search revenue, analysts at Nomura and Daiwa told Reuters. Search revenue, they said, represented more than 80 percent of the firm's total 2015 sales. The company brought in $2.5 billion in total revenue for the first quarter of 2016. Regulators told the country's largest internet search engine that it must ensure that the search position of paid ads was no longer based on the highest bidder, according to a statement on the Cyberspace Administration of China's website. Health care ads should no longer make up more than 30 percent of ads on a page,

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