Alibaba, the biggest native online retailer, is engaged in a war-of-words with one of the country’s regulators. The friction began when the regulator claims Alibaba wasn’t doing enough about illegal business carried out using its technology. Alibaba have hit back, branding the regulator “biased” and “wrong”. The company has threatened to file a formal complaint.
Alibaba’s sites are used by approximately 279 million buyers and 8.5 million sellers. Jack Ma, the company’s founder has announced plans to expand his company over the world and attract two billion customers, making Alibaba a serious challenger to the likes of Amazon and eBay. Experts are saying that a dispute with the Chinese authorities could slow down their progress.
The company has admitted that its attempts to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods may not be as successful as they would like. The firm has said that it is taking measures to thwart criminality on its platforms, with Washington no longer placing Alibaba.com or its Taobao marketplace on its list of “notorious markets”. The watchdog in question, SAIC, claim that most of the goods sold via Taobao are not genuine. It has also accused the company of “narcissism”, and accused some of its employees of taking bribes.
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