Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) sued two vendors it said used the company’s Taobao (淘寶) Web site to sell counterfeit Swarovski watches, just weeks after the site was labeled a haven for knockoffs by US regulators.
The lawsuit is the first legal action taken by an e-commerce site in China against sellers of counterfeit goods and Alibaba seeks 1.4 million yuan (US$202,000) in damages, the company said on Wednesday in a statement.
The case filed with the Shenzhen Longgang District People’s Court is part of Alibaba’s larger efforts to root out counterfeit goods on its shopping sites. The company said it intends to take similar legal action against other vendors.
“We want to mete out to counterfeiters the punishment they deserve in order to protect brand owners,” Alibaba Group chief platform governance officer Zheng Junfang (鄭君芳) said in the statement.
“We will bring the full force of the law to bear on these counterfeiters so as to deter others from engaging in this crime wherever they are,” Zheng said.
The US Office of the Trade Representative last month named Taobao a “notorious” market, citing an unacceptably high level of reported counterfeiting and piracy.
The notorious market listing harms Alibaba’s ability to expand overseas, where it needs to build relationships with retailers, brands and entertainment companies.
Alibaba said it has tightened policies against copyright infringement and made it easier for brands to request fakes be removed. It took down 380 million product listings and closed about 180,000 stores on its Taobao platform in the 12 months to August, the company said in a letter to the US trade office
Amazon.com Inc has also stepped up efforts to fight counterfeit goods to boost credibility. In November, Seattle-based Amazon filed two lawsuits against vendors allegedly selling fake items through its online marketplace.
Similar to Amazon, Alibaba said it is using technology such as machine learning and data analysis to identify and take down fakes. The company said it detected a Taobao merchant suspected of selling counterfeit goods and provided the information to the Shenzhen Luohu District police, who raided the seller on Aug. 10 and confiscated more than 125 counterfeit Swarovski watches.
Another fake Swarovski seller on Taobao was found during the process.
Last month, Alibaba sued Shatui.com (傻推網), which allegedly links merchants with people willing to falsify purchases and write positive comments that can drive up sellers’ rankings on Alibaba.
The company said that from April to July last year it provided leads to Chinese authorities on counterfeiting that helped seize fake goods valued at more than 1.4 billion yuan, spur the arrest of 332 suspects and shut down 417 production lines.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy