Analysis Chinese tech giants Lenovo, Alibaba become hot targets of US class-action lawsuits

Capital-rich Chinese technology firms such as top PC maker Lenovo and e-commerce giant Alibaba have apparently become hot targets for class-action lawsuits in the United States as their investors and customers pay more attention to possible business misconduct.

Beijing-headquartered Lenovo last week was sued by professional blogger Jessica Bennett, who claimed she received unwanted pop-up adverts on a Lenova Yoga 2 laptop she used for business – which she later learned had been preloaded with Superfish Visual Discovery adware.

The class-action suit was filed at the US District Court of the Southern District of California.

At least six US law firms have also launched separate investigations for a potential class-action lawsuit against Lenovo and its partner, software start-up Superfish.

Security experts have warned that the Superfish adware breaks secure connections on laptops in order to push advertising into online searches and websites without the computer user’s permission, leaving machines exposed to hackers and other malicious software.

The class-action lawsuit against Lenovo came just a few weeks after Hangzhou-based Alibaba’s trouble with some of its minority shareholders in the US, where Alibaba launched the world’s largest initial public offering (IPO) of stocks late last year.