Baidu employees arrested for taking bribes for post deletion

Three employees of Chinese search engine Baidu have been arrested for taking bribes to delete postings.

According to the BBC, the bribery ring netted a profit of thousands of pounds. It is still not known what type of content was deleted from search postings. Baidu has a history of censorship scandals.

The company reportedly sacked four employees following an investigation. Three of the unnamed employees were arrested. The fourth fired employee faced no criminal charges but was accused of being a co-conspirer by Baidu.

Baidu is currently China's most used web search service. According to iResearch statistics the company held a 74 per cent online search market share in 2011.

The Baidu scandal points to the larger concern of online censorship in China.

The company was sued for governmental censorship last year. A group of Chinese residents in New York sued the search company for conspiring to censor pro-democratic content.

While corporate bribery is a major crime in China, the incident could still be a cause for concern in the country's business scene.

Former China Mobile vice chairman Zhang Chunjiang was arrested for taking over $1 million in bribes as of 2011. Chunjiang was accused of giving out favourable contracts in return for bribe money.

The former corporate vice president was sentenced to death for accepting the bribes.

Baidu has yet to respond to a request for comment.