Alibaba Watched By US Trade Group

Alibaba still remains in the watch list of US trade reps amid its counterfeiting goods controversy.

Alibaba Group Holding is still on the watch list of the US Trade Representative Group despite of taking serious actions against the accusations made against its online marketplaces. The luxury brand owners complained the US Trade Reps a few months ago regarding the sale of counterfeited goods on its few marketplaces. This business hampered the progress of luxury brands’ business as people could get their product at cheaper price on Alibaba marketplaces. The Chinese Tech Gaint has been issued two warnings from the US group in quick successions.

Alibaba Group just took one of the biggest steps in history by acquiring the leading Hong Kong based newspaper, South China Morning Post. This was done to improve the image of its mainland as it is believed that the company does not have very healthy relations with the Chinese government. Regardless of that, it is very close to be named in the notorious market list for fake goods. The Trade Reps published a 30 pages report this month which mentioned its concerns regarding fakery on Alibaba online platforms.

The report clearly mentioned that the trade office is highly concerned about the property infringement about Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace. Both of these platforms were named in the notorious market list for fake goods back in 2008. The US Trade Group removed Alibaba.com and Taobao Marketplace in 2011 and 2012. On removal, both online platforms vowed to be working on cleaning their websites and soon working with legal and authorized sellers only.

It is a known fact that the Chinese internet market is dominated by Alibaba along with two other big name companies such as Tencent Holdings and Baidu. Asia Sentinel reported, “How much landing on the Notorious Markets list would cost Alibaba is uncertain, since it draws by far the largest percentage of its online customers from China’s 668 million Internet users – an online population twice the size of the entire 320 million of the United States.  But its market capitalization has fallen by US$50 billion in 2015 on the threat of being blacklisted.”

Alibaba is such a big name that it invented its own Chinese version of Cyber Monday. The company named it Singles’ Day which falls on November 11 every year and is known as the biggest one day online shopping event in the world.

Reportedly, Jack Ma has hired a former Apple investigator to help the company remove fakery from its platforms. The founder and chairman says that fakery on Alibaba will not only pose bad image on the company but on China as well.