Shanghai's market watchdog is investigating several hospitals and the search engine giants Baidu and Sogou, which they believe violated China's new online advertising regulations.
The search engines ranked advertisements for three hospitals that are not licensed to provide maternal and pediatric services at the top of its list of search results for "induced abortion," said the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau.
The search engines have been accused of failing to scrutinize the content of medical advertisements before publishing them, the bureau said.
Shanghai Nanpu Gynecology Hospital, Shanghai An'ping Hospital and Shanghai Xupu Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine are also under investigation for allegedly publishing illegal advertisements, according to the bureau.
Medical advertisements must be reviewed and approved by the health authorities before they are published, according to new cyberspace advertising management regulations imposed yesterday by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
The advertisements would not have been approved because the three hospitals are not licensed to provide maternal services, bureau officials said.
The new regulations state that paid-for search results are ads, and that authorities with jurisdiction over advertisers or advertisement publishers can penalize those responsible for irregularities, which expands the scope of their authority, said Li.
"In the past, there was no consensus on whether paid-for rankings are advertisements or not for authorities in different cities," said Li Hua, deputy director of the advertising department of the bureau.
Moreover, jurisdiction was also an obstacle that hindered the investigation of illegal advertisements, he added.
In the past, the bureau could not penalize Baidu because it is not based in Shanghai.
"Misleading advertising in paid-for listings are commonly seen in sectors like medical treatment, tourism, education training and overseas study agencies," said Ying Jun, director of the bureau's advertising department.
Advertisers and publishers face a fine of up to 1 million yuan (US$151,515) and can have their business licenses revoked in serious cases.
The new regulations come in the aftermath of an investigation into Baidu, which came under fire for influencing users' choices by presenting misleading information.
Wei Zexi, a computer science major at Xidian University in northwest China who had cancer, fell victim to Baidu's "pay to play" scheme.
Wei died in April after a controversial treatment he found via a Baidu search failed.
