Recently, the first case of artificial brush interference with search engine algorithms involving unfair competition was pronounced.
I Love Network Technology Co., Ltd. was sentenced to compensate Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd. for publishing a website through advertising tasks, helping users create false traffic and disrupt search results, and was awarded 2.05 million yuan in compensation for Baidu Netcom Technology Co., Ltd. in the first instance.
It is understood that the "I Love Advertising Task Network" operated by the defendant has carried out customized operations for the Baidu search engine. Users can complete different tasks such as clicks, searches, browsing, and business Q&A in the "task lobby", earn coins and exchange them for cash, so as to help task issuers brush up the number of clicks on the website and improve their ranking in search results.
The defendant also used different models such as VIP and bidding to expand the scale of brushing volume and induce users to disguise normal consumers to brush volume, and the essence of its behavior was to artificially create false clicks against search engines.
The defendant's website has been written off and screenshots are from the internet.
The Haidian District People's Court of Beijing Municipality held that the defendant's conduct constituted an act of unfair competition regulated by Article 2 of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law, that is, an act of a business operator disrupting the order of market competition and harming the lawful rights and interests of other business operators or consumers in its production and business activities.
The court pointed out in the case express that the invalid traffic generated by the defendant will lead to the wrong ranking of search results, and users need to spend more time to find the target website, or make wrong judgments based on false data, which will make Baidu lose user trust and reduce its competitive advantage.
For other sites that do not publish tasks on the defendant's platform, they will be ranked lower in the search results and will lose their fair competitive position and competitive opportunities.
According to the case report, the act not only increased the cost of Baidu's maintenance of normal search and operation services, but also disrupted the order of market competition and violated the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. In the long run, if this model is not regulated, it will flood the search engine with fake clicks, which will seriously interfere with the algorithm and logic of the search platform.
At present, the case is still in the appeal period.
Written by: Nandu reporter Huang Huishi