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Before those things are built, what should my mother do to avoid being killed by those fake medical ads on Baidu? How should I explain to my mother she should a

by schuke 8y ago

Before those things are built, what should my mother do to avoid being killed by those fake medical ads on Baidu? How should I explain to my mother she should always toggle on the VPN that doesn’t always work and use the search engine that she can’t even pronouce to avoid being scammed? And how can we scale up that effort two hundred million times so that all elderly people in China can save their hard-earned money and their health? And while all that happns how do we make sure the Party will simply sit and watch and not further restrict access?

vageli 8y ago
Why would the fake ads go away under Google?
- schuke 8y ago
  Because Baidu is monopolizing the search market in China. It also is especially dependent on misleading medicl searches financially. Organizationally there are reports that Lu Qi, its former CEO just lost out fighting those in favour of this business model. And CEO Robin Li is either bizarrely very delusional about the integrity of his business or extremely wicked in not giving a shit about cheating people into buying shoddy medical services. Baidu is evil pure and simple. Google on the other hand will be under special scrutiny from both the Chinese gov and overseas, though ironically for entirely opposite reasons. It’s extremely unlikely it will do anything remotely similiar to what Baidu does.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    Perhaps you are unaware of how bad Google has been at this as well: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16257412/rehabs-near-me-google-search-scam-florida-treatment-centers https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16257412/rehabs-near-me-go... There is a huge portion of Google's revenue that comes from malicious, fraudulent ads, and they have very little financial reason to prevent themselves from making boatloads of money. They only locked down rehab ads once The Verge called them out on it. Please read this whole expose, then decide if Google is really going to improve things in your country.
p49k 8y ago
What an absurd false dichotomy. “Either let Google assist the Chinese government in censoring information or my Grandmother will die.” Seriously? It’s the government’s responsibility to prohibit false advertising, and in an environment that lacks such regulation, there’s no reason to think Google will do a better job of self-policing such ads than Baidu.
- schuke 8y ago
  It’s the government’s responsibility yes but the government isn’t the only effective measure against false ads. The market works too so why not have both? Isn’t it even more necessary to have other resorts when the government isn’t elected and does not work? There of course is reason to think Google will do better because people are literally crying for an alternative. It’s a no brainer for anyone who wants to compete in China.
  - p49k 8y ago
    A “market based” solution makes no sense here. Both Google and Baidu are going to optimize for ad revenue, which means doing only the minimum in terms of self-policing to avoid government regulation, just as Google, Facebook and others have done in every other country in which they operate, including the US. The fact that Google is entering this market in the first place, in essence putting profit over ethics, weakens your point further.

by schuke 8y ago

vageli 8y ago

Why would the fake ads go away under Google?

schuke 8y ago
Because Baidu is monopolizing the search market in China. It also is especially dependent on misleading medicl searches financially. Organizationally there are reports that Lu Qi, its former CEO just lost out fighting those in favour of this business model. And CEO Robin Li is either bizarrely very delusional about the integrity of his business or extremely wicked in not giving a shit about cheating people into buying shoddy medical services. Baidu is evil pure and simple. Google on the other hand will be under special scrutiny from both the Chinese gov and overseas, though ironically for entirely opposite reasons. It’s extremely unlikely it will do anything remotely similiar to what Baidu does.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  Perhaps you are unaware of how bad Google has been at this as well: https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16257412/rehabs-near-me-google-search-scam-florida-treatment-centers https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16257412/rehabs-near-me-go... There is a huge portion of Google's revenue that comes from malicious, fraudulent ads, and they have very little financial reason to prevent themselves from making boatloads of money. They only locked down rehab ads once The Verge called them out on it. Please read this whole expose, then decide if Google is really going to improve things in your country.

p49k 8y ago

What an absurd false dichotomy. “Either let Google assist the Chinese government in censoring information or my Grandmother will die.” Seriously? It’s the government’s responsibility to prohibit false advertising, and in an environment that lacks such regulation, there’s no reason to think Google will do a better job of self-policing such ads than Baidu.

schuke 8y ago
It’s the government’s responsibility yes but the government isn’t the only effective measure against false ads. The market works too so why not have both? Isn’t it even more necessary to have other resorts when the government isn’t elected and does not work? There of course is reason to think Google will do better because people are literally crying for an alternative. It’s a no brainer for anyone who wants to compete in China.
- p49k 8y ago
  A “market based” solution makes no sense here. Both Google and Baidu are going to optimize for ad revenue, which means doing only the minimum in terms of self-policing to avoid government regulation, just as Google, Facebook and others have done in every other country in which they operate, including the US. The fact that Google is entering this market in the first place, in essence putting profit over ethics, weakens your point further.