jeudi 27 octobre 2016

Nation of Fakes

More Trade Groups Want Alibaba Back on USTR’s Piracy List
By Kathy Chu

Alibaba staff?

A dozen trade groups are joining the call for Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to be put back on a list of global marketplaces known for counterfeit and pirated goods.
In a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative Wednesday, these trade groups—including the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, the Council of Fashion Designers of America and the Travel Goods Association—said they were making the request because an “enormous amount of counterfeits” remain on Alibaba’s sites, especially its flea-market-like Taobao shopping platform.
The USTR’s annual list highlights physical and online markets “notorious” for fakes.
While 18 trade groups signed Wednesday’s letter to the USTR, a handful— including the American Apparel & Footwear Association and France’s Unifab—had already submitted individual comments to the agency, saying Alibaba needed to do more to address fakes on its platforms.
“This is the largest collection of organizations that have been willing to stand up and say, enough is enough” with counterfeit-goods sales, said Rick Helfenbein, chief executive of AAFA. 
The trade group for about 1,000 brands is leading the effort.
“Alibaba has had plenty of opportunities to make it right,” Mr. Helfenbein said.
Alibaba is preparing for its largest online-shopping day of the year on Nov. 11, the Chinese equivalent of Cyber Monday in the U.S. 
Alibaba’s online-shopping platforms are among the largest in the world, with merchandise volume of $485 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2016.
In 2012, the USTR removed Alibaba’s bazaar-like Taobao platform from the agency’s list of offending marketplaces, citing improvements Alibaba made in monitoring counterfeit goods on the platform.
But the agency said last year it had grown “increasingly concerned” about the sale of counterfeit goods on Alibaba’s platforms and would look for signs this year that Alibaba has taken steps to address the problem.

Aucun commentaire:

Enregistrer un commentaire