百度将关闭在线医疗咨询服务

Chinese search and online services conglomerate Baidu will shutter its medical consultation service after a string of medicine advertisement scandals bit into the company’s reputation and revenues last year.

中国搜索与网络服务集团百度(Baidu)将关闭其医疗咨询服务。此前，百度曾在去年遭遇一系列医疗广告丑闻，伤及百度的声誉及营收。

The online consultation platform, Baidu Yisheng, will begin taking some of its services offline on March 10, with all services halting completely by April 1 as part of corporate restructuring, according to an announcement made on its official WeChat account.

根据百度官方微信账号发布的声明，作为百度重组的一部分，名为百度医生(Baidu Yisheng)的在线咨询平台将于3月10日开始将部分服务下线，并将所有服务在4月1日前关停。

Baidu narrowly missed revenue expectations in the final quarter of last year, as the Chinese search engine tried to reassure investors that the worst of its latest advertising scandal was behind it.

百度在去年第四季度的营收比预期略低。与此同时，这家中国搜索引擎公司试图让投资者相信，该公司最后一起广告丑闻影响最坏的时期已经过去。

In May last year public outcry and regulatory pressure forced Baidu to apologise for seeking to financially exploit medical information bulletin boards and said it would stop the practice on its Tieba, or Post Bar, site.

去年5月，在公众的抗议和监管机构的压力下，百度不得不出面为试图从医疗信息论坛攫取财务利益道歉，并表示会停止在百度贴吧(Baidu Tieba)网站的行为。

In January the company came under fire for selling the right to moderate its online medical advice forums to for-profit hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. That was followed by another scandal sparked in April by the death of a young man who had purchased an experimental cancer treatment advertised on Baidu.com.

去年1月，由于将在线医疗咨询论坛的管理权出售给营利性医院和制药公司，百度受到了各方的抨击。而在之后的4月份，一名年轻男子的丧生又引发了另一宗丑闻——该男子曾出资接受百度网站建议的一种试验性癌症疗法。

Public outcry prompted regulators to force the company to reduce advertising displayed alongside its search results, in addition to calling for the company vet its advertisers more closely. As a result the company lost 18.6 per cent of its advertising clients in the fourth quarter compared to a year before, with full-year operating profit dropping 13.9 per cent.

公众的抗议，令监管机构除了呼吁该公司加强对广告客户的审查以外，还迫使百度减少了与搜索结果一道显示的广告。这导致第四季度百度广告客户同比减少18.6%，全年运营利润下滑13.9%。

Baidu’s New York listed shares are down 5.5 per cent since the company announced its earnings in late February.

自2月底百度公布其财报以来，百度在纽约上市的股票已下滑5.5%。