Alibaba hits back at US over market blacklist

From CNET: The Office of the US Trade Representative has blacklisted Alibaba's popular online shopping platform again this year over its problem with fake goods. And Alibaba is not happy.

The Chinese e-commerce titan published a point-by-point rebuttal in response to the US Trade Representative's 2017 list of notorious markets released Friday, on which its eBay-like Taobao platform is listed for the second consecutive year.

China has long had a problem with counterfeit goods, with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development saying that over half of the world's fake goods originate from the country, including fake baby formula, mutton, eggs and whiskey. Alibaba's Taobao is also accused of housing counterfeiters, but the company has been trying to rid the public of the belief that its platforms are saturated with counterfeits for "many years." Its efforts helped take it off the blacklist for four years in 2012, according to the rebuttal.

Alibaba's founder, Jack Ma, has also publicly urged the Chinese government more than once to mete out harsher penalties upon counterfeiters. In a Weibo post addressed to Chinese lawmakers at a high-level meeting in March, Ma called for counterfeiters to be punished like drunk drivers. The letter came a month after he wrote a public appeal to the government criticising its ambiguous counterfeiting rules and saying his company a victim of fake goods too.

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