Search Engines Required to Post Gov't Bank Website Links

(Beijing) – China's top search engines are now required to post the links of five state-owned banks at the top of every search page.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) issued the requirement in an announcement on December 30. The MPS cited recent online security concerns and said the search engines have agreed to comply.

The top ten search engine companies operating in China, including Baidu, Bing, Sogou and Yahoo and six others now must post the official website links to Industrial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Postal Savings Bank of China along with China UnionPay and CebNet.

A representative with the MPS said that financial institutions reported phishing attacks, or the siphoning of user passwords, claiming that customers have lost private data since 2010.