Accomplice or Innocent? A Search Engine in Medical Scams

This teaching case illustrates the complexities in online marketing, especially in health care online marketing. It presents the challenges patients face when seeking information for treatments, and how patients may be flooded with information of poor quality, even scams. We examines the role of the search engine giant Baidu. The case discusses Baidu’s revenue generation models, the keywords bidding systems, recent disputes between Baidu and a private healthcare association, and regulations on advertisements. This case illustrates how the search engine is involved in medical scams. We discuss the following aspects: 1) The business model of an IT search engine company 2) The trade-offs involved when an IT company heavily relies on marketing incomes for revenue growths 3) The needs to regulate online marketing.