Abstract: The decline in existing legal regulation of paid listing of search engine has created the need for criminal regulation. Neither the principle of technological neutrality nor the principle of safe harbor can justify the malicious behavior of paid listing. In fact, paid listing of search engine in the digital era has become a “helper” for cybercrime. The key premise of criminal regulation for it is to establish its dual attributes of advertising service and information retrieval service. According to the path of imputation of principal offender, the behavior of paid listing can be charged with the crimes of false advertising, refusal to fulfill the information network security management obligations, assistance of network information criminal activities on the basis of actual laws. However, when the situation is incompatible with the criminal liability of search engine enterprises, it is appropriate to adopt the path of imputation of accomplice, and reasonably limit the criminal liability of paid listing enterprises by limiting paid listing to areas related to personal legal interests and invoking the theory of “consensual dangerousness of the other”.

Key words: digital economy, paid listing, criminal regulation, neutral assistance, legal interest protection