李彥宏：警惕百度的30天破產(chǎn)

李彥宏：警惕百度的30天破產(chǎn)

“魏則西事件”后，百度董事長兼CEO李彥宏首度發(fā)聲，警告全體員工，如失去用戶的支持，百度離破產(chǎn)只有30天。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

bankruptcy 破產(chǎn)['b??kr?pts?]

Cyberspace Administration of China 國家網(wǎng)信辦

distort 扭曲；使失真[d?'st??t]

Barclays 巴克萊銀行（公司名）

vet 審查；診療[vet]

vaguely 含糊地；茫然地['ve?gl?]

commercialization 商業(yè)化[k?,m?:??lai'zei??n]

moderator 調(diào)解人；緩和劑['m?d?re?t?]

clinic 臨床；診所['kl?n?k]

haven 港口；避難所['he?v(?)n]

閱讀馬上開始，建議您計算一下閱讀整篇文章所用的時間，對照下方的參考值就可以評估出您的英文閱讀水平。

如果您讀完全文用時為： 那么，您的閱讀速度相當于 每分鐘閱讀的英文單詞數(shù)

3分33秒 母語為英語者的朗讀速度 140

2分40秒 母語為英語的中學生的閱讀速度 250

1分37秒 母語為英語的大學生的閱讀速度 350

0分55秒 母語為英語的速讀高手 1000

Baidu chief tells staff improve focus on users or face bankruptcy （551words）

By Charles Clover in Beijing

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The chief executive of Baidu has said the Chinese search engine must reform or face “bankruptcy in 30 days”, following a scandal over an advertisement for cancer therapy.

“Our values have become distorted, and financial performance has become more important to us than user experience,” Robin Li told employees in a letter published a day after Cyberspace Administration, China’s main internet regulator, imposed controls on medical advertising on the site.

The search engine has been under heightened scrutiny following the death of a 21-year-old student from a rare form of cancer in April. His parents said he used Baidu to search for alternative treatments, and eventually paid Rmb200,000 ($31,000) for “biological immunotherapy” offered by a Beijing hospital. They added that the experimental treatment had no effect and led him to miss opportunities to use proven treatments.

Since the scandal broke earlier this month, Baidu’s share price has fallen more than 13 per cent as investors have questioned its dependence on under-regulated medical industry for much of its revenues.

Healthcare accounts for 20-30 per cent of the company’s search income, according to Barclays, while search revenues represented 84 per cent of the group’s total sales in 2015.

The regulator on Monday told Baidu to vet advertisers more carefully, mark and attach risk warnings to all paid search results more clearly. It also said ads must comprise only 30 per cent of results displayed on a page.

Mark Natkin, head of Beijing-based Marbridge Consulting, said the Cyberspace Administration’s statement was vaguely worded and its financial impact on the company would only become clear in the coming days.

Mr Li pledged in his open letter to change Baidu’s corporate culture, which he said was “drifting away from its users” by focusing on profits. “If we lose the support of users, we lose hold of our values, and Baidu will truly go bankrupt in just 30 days!” he wrote, saying the crisis was worse than any incident the company had previously experienced.

“I see senior engineers trapped in a conflict of interest between commercial interest and user experience, and often compromising the latter. Users are raising questions concerning the fairness and transparency of our commercial promotion results, and complaining about commercialisation of our products,” he said.

This is not the first time commercial relationships with the medical industry have created problems for the company.

In January, the company apologised after criticism over medical advice found on its online forums known as Tieba. Users had attacked the company for replacing the volunteer moderator of a board devoted to haemophilia with a for-profit clinic that paid Baidu for the privilege.

In 2014, Baidu was involved in a scandal after an ad for “Gay conversion therapy”, including electronic shocks and hypnosis, led a Chinese customer to sue. A court ordered the company to remove the ad in December 2014, although it did not find Baidu guilty of any wrongdoing.

Guo Yang, an analyst of mobile medicine at Analysys International, a Beijing-based internet research group, said the web had become a haven for unreliable medical information in China mainly because it was under-regulated.

“The law restricts clinics and medical equipment companies from advertising on TV and radio, so naturally these clinics turn to the internet, which is less restricted and where advertising is cheaper,” he said.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1. What has become more important to Baidu as Robin Li told employees?

A. user experience

B. enterprise culture

C. financial performance

D. open mind

2. How old was the dead student from a rare form of cancer?

A. 21

B. 13

C. 22

D. 30

3. What is Baidu’s major income source in 2015?

A. advertising revenues

B. paid contents

C. royalties

D. search revenues

4. What had become a haven for unreliable medical information in China as the analyst Guo Yang said?

A. unreliable newspapers

B. the outdoor advertisement

C. the web

D. TV programs

[1] 答案 C. financial performance

解釋：“我們的價值觀被擠壓變形了，業(yè)績增長凌駕于用戶體驗，”李彥宏(Robin Li)對雇員們表示。

[2] 答案 A. 21

解釋：這次事件中去世的學生年僅21歲。

[3] 答案 D. search revenues

解釋：據(jù)巴克萊銀行介紹，醫(yī)療保健占搜索收入的20%至30%，而搜索收入占2015年總銷售額的84%，是百度的主要收入來源。

[4] 答案 C. the web

解釋：由于監(jiān)管不力，在中國，網(wǎng)絡(luò)已經(jīng)成為傳播不可靠醫(yī)療信息的“天堂”。