Alibaba and Beijing step up anti-counterfeiting drive

Alibaba Group, the mainland's largest e-commerce services provider, is tightening its focus on eliminating counterfeit merchandise across its online trading platforms with the help of five key government and law enforcement agencies.

The company announced yesterday a partnership with the Ministry of Public Security, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, the State Intellectual Property Office and the General Administration of Press and Publication to root out counterfeiting and intellectual property rights infringement.

Jack Ma Yun, the chairman and chief executive of Alibaba, at a conference in Hangzhou, described the mainland's counterfeiting issue as "a spreading toxic cancer that must be dealt with".

Ma also called counterfeiting syndicates as "the mafia in our society", responsible for "curbing innovation and creating a false prosperity" in the economy.

Alibaba's new Beijing-backed initiative will support the company's online system for identifying, confirming and taking down counterfeit product information on its platforms and penalising merchants caught violating intellectual property rights.

The five government agencies are expected to join forces offline to track and locate the identified sources of counterfeit goods and shut down these operations.