In wake of student’s death, Robin Li announces creation of 1 billion yuan fund to compensate users misled by paid ads…Baidu founder and chief executive Robin Li Yanhong yesterday rallied employees to help change the culture inside the online search giant as it takes responsibility for a university student’s death…

A task force set up by the Cyberspace Administration of China…concluded that the objectivity of Baidu’s search results was compromised by the paid-search listings…

“The management and employees’ obsession of KPI (key performance indicators) has twisted our values...and distanced ourselves from users,” Li said in an internal memo sent to Baidu staff on Tuesday. “If we lose the support of users, we lose hold of our values, and Baidu will truly go bankrupt in just 30 days.” Baidu has taken down the majority of paid-search links for major medical-related keywords and announced that it would stop working with all military-related medical institutions…“These measures may be negative to company revenue, but we are determined to face sacrifices because we believe this is the right thing to do.” [Li said.]

…Competitors have responded quickly to the Baidu scandal. Software company Qihoo 360 Technology stopped all medical-services-related advertising on its search engine last week.