Fight Against Online Sale of Fakes Goes on for Alibaba Group

In an ongoing battle against the online sale of counterfeit merchandise, Alibaba Group, China’s largest operator of Web shopping platforms, removed an estimated 114 million listings for suspected fake goods from the company’s giant Taobao Marketplace during the first ten months of 2013. The listing take-downs, which increased by 31 percent compared with the number of take-downs in the full year of 2012, are part of a comprehensive effort by Alibaba Group to curb intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement on its Taobao Marketplace, Alibaba.com, AliExpress, and Tmall.com e-commerce websites, according to company officials. Alibaba’s online marketplaces host millions of independent vendors. Policing the sites for counterfeit goods is an ongoing challenge, but one that must be met to protect the rights of consumers and brand owners, Alibaba executives have said. At a press conference last year announcing an with Chinese government and law enforcement agencies, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma called China’s highly organized counterfeiting industry a “cancer in society.” Alibaba recently issued a statement on its position on piracy: “Alibaba Group is highly committed to the protection of intellectual property rights and the fight against counterfeiting. The company works with brands, associations, government agencies and other stakeholders to create visible and significant results in the intellectual property enforcement space.”