Alibaba Vows To Step Up Efforts To Prevent Online Sales Of Counterfeit Goods

It’s been a whirlwind week for the relationship between e-commerce giant Alibaba and the Chinese government. After one agency released a report criticizing the company for allowing fake goods to be sold online through its vendors, and another government group promised to crack down on such practices in general, Alibaba is now pledging to shape up its business practices.

Alibaba and its eBay-like subsidiary Taobao at first seemed a bit ticked off by Wednesday’s white paper from the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, which alleged that “Alibaba Group hasn’t been paying enough attention to the mismanagement of the Alibaba Internet transaction platforms for a long time.”

Taobao said in a statement at the time that the site is “willing to assume the responsibility of fighting fakes,” while also saying it would file a formal complaint with the SAIC regarding the investigation. It alleged that a top SAIC official demonstrated “procedural misconduct during the supervision process” and that SAIC obtained a “biased conclusion using the wrong methodology.”

But as of yesterday, the white paper was removed from SAIC’s site, and today Alibaba has come forward to pledge a renewed effort to prevent fake goods from being sold online. This, after the value of its U.S.-traded shares took a major hit, reports the Associated Press.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma and the director of the SAIC met and pledged to work together more closely to fight sales of fake items, the agency said.

Though e-commerce “still has problems” says SAIC director Zhang Mao in the statement, it’s still important to create jobs and keep the economy robust, so companies need to “strengthen self-discipline.”

“The two sides will strengthen communication to jointly explore management of online markets and build a new pattern of governance,” said the statement, citing Alibaba’s Ma as promising to spend more on culling fake goods from the online racks. “Regulators will further strengthen Internet market supervision.”

Alibaba promises more action against fake goods [Associated Press]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist