Alibaba joins fight against counterfeits

Beijing, Jan 17: China's e-commerce giant Alibaba said on Tuesday that it has joined a group of 20 brands to fight counterfeit goods using data analysis.

Alibaba said it was the first "alliance" to fight counterfeits and it includes both Chinese and international brands like Huawei, LV, Swarovski, Dulux, Samsung, Sony and Bioderma, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Jack Ma company said the move would make the fight against counterfeit more "powerful and transparent".

"Counterfeiting is rampant in the global market these days, and it's increasingly difficult to eradicate bogus goods using traditional offline means," said Jessie Zheng, Alibaba Group's chief platform governance officer.

She said that Alibaba Group was willing to join the fight against counterfeits with its technologies and resources in order to protect consumer rights.

Based on Alibaba big data analysis, Chinese law enforcement authorities closed 675 workshops, warehouses and vendors producing and selling fake goods, from September 2015 to August 2016.

Over the same period, Alibaba Group closed 180,000 stores on its shopping platform Taobao.com.

The police authorities in various parts across China have backed this endeavour.

"Alibaba's big data and cloud computing technologies provided strong technical support and improved efficiency in our fight against counterfeits," said Wang Hui, deputy chief of an economic crime investigation team.