New | Alibaba’s bot the latest weapon in China’s fight against bootleggers
Alibaba ratchets up anti-counterfeiting plan even as US names Taobao as a ‘notorious market’ - Zhejiang’s Operation Cloud Sword has helped send 800 counterfeiters to jail in past 12 months
Alibaba Group Holdings, operator of the world’s largest online shopping platforms, said it was using big-data analytics to help Chinese law enforcement crack down on counterfeit products on its Taobao Marketplace site, even as the United States government included it in an annual “notorious markets” list.
Powered by big data, Alibaba’s bot programme could scan product listings and analyse online transactions on its Taobao, Tmall and Juhuasuan platforms. The 600 analytics models of this bot could process 100 million pieces of data per second, providing scans on more than 10 million product listings a day, Alibaba said.
That online intelligence had been vital in helping Chinese law enforcement officials seize 1.43 billion yuan (HK$1.6 billion) of bootleg goods, said Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post.
“More than 800 counterfeiters were sent to jail in the past year due to these efforts and the big data analysis of Alibaba’s anti-counterfeit campaign,” Alibaba chief executive Daniel Zhang Yong said in a memo to company staff yesterday.
China, the world’s factory with facilities ranging from mega factories to backyard workshops, has been fighting a long and arduous battle to crack down on counterfeiters and their copycat watches and bags, ever since the country became a member of the World Trade Organisation.