What Are The Factors That Led USTR To Pull Ali Again?

According to the world clothing shoes and hat net, after four years, Ali has been planted on fake products.

On Wednesday, the US government again listed the big business tycoon in the list of "notorious market".

This time, it was only four years since Ali was removed from the list.

Once again, Ali was listed in the notorious market by The U.S. Trade Representative (hereinafter referred to as "USTR").

The so-called "notorious market" list is released by USTR, which is intended to assist relevant agencies to intensify efforts to crack down on intellectual property violations.

He has always insisted that his monitoring of counterfeit goods is much better than that of Ali before.

"We are deeply sorry about the decision of the office of the US trade representative, ignoring the Alibaba's work in the fight against counterfeit goods," said Michael Evans, group president and former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, in a statement.

"Four years ago, it was the agency that removed us from this list.

In the past four years, we have

The rights holders and law enforcement agencies have carried out a series of practical actions that put the counterfeiters in the law, and carried out the protection of intellectual property rights with more effective and advanced means.

At the same time, USTR has brought us back to the list of notorious markets. We highly doubt whether the decision is realistic.

The intense words can not help people want to ask in turn, what are the factors that make USTR pull Ali again?

Industry representatives said Ali did not take the initiative to refuse.

In 2012, Ali hired a former US government official, James Mendenhall, to improve the company's image in the field of intellectual property protection, and spent $461 thousand on lobbying the US Congress, the White House and USTR, which even cost more than four times the cost of the previous year.

Finally, in December 2012, USTR announced that Taobao would be removed from the list of notorious markets.

But last year, USTR again expressed concern about the large-scale sale of goods on the Alibaba platform, but said it would not be included in the list of "notorious markets" for the time being. Instead, it would first observe whether Ali would take effective measures to solve the problem.

Because Ali is not the owner of the goods sold on its own platform, it will not benefit directly from the sale of these fake products.

But the volume of pactions brought by these commodity sales is still the most important index for analysts and investors, and this data can help Ali raise the price of advertising.

In June, Ma Yun talked about fake products in an interview with Xinhua news agency. "Every Alibaba selling a fake product will make the company lose more than 5 users".

At the same time, Ma Yun has also been controversial because he said that "some fake products are better than genuine products".

However, Ma Yun later said that this sentence was taken out of context by the media.

Alibaba said that it has launched anti counterfeiting cooperation with more than 18 thousand international brands including apple, Burberry, LV, Cartier, Nike and so on, and has also worked with Chinese law enforcement departments to cut off the counterfeiting and selling fake industrial chain from the source.

However, the American Apparel &Footwear Association, which represents more than 1000 brands of clothing and footwear, has been pushing USTR to include Ali in the "notorious market" list, insisting that fake products are very rampant on Ali platforms.

Unifab, a French industry association representing about 400 French brands, also urged USTR to rebrand Ali into the "notorious market" list.

Spokesman David Saussinan said, "although Unifab has been maintaining dialogue with Alibaba and has been negotiating for many years, Alibaba has not taken the initiative to take measures to solve the problem of counterfeiting."

In response, the Alibaba said it would "cheat at all costs" to crack down on counterfeiting, and has submitted a document to USTR explaining how to minimize infringement.

The high-end brand partnership is playing the opposite role with ALI.

In April this year, Ali announced that it had joined the world's largest anti counterfeiting organization "The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition" (hereinafter referred to as "IACC"), becoming one of the first newly established "ordinary members".

But in just a month, IACC announced in an open letter that "the Alibaba membership will be suspended after a series of famous brands' dissatisfaction and pressure."

At that time, the American luxury brand Michael Kors, one of the members of IACC, challenged the admission of Ali, saying it was the most dangerous existence in the fashion industry, and then announced that it had withdrawn from IACC.

Soon Italy luxury brands

He said he would join the battle against Ali and withdraw from IACC.

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Gucci even joined other luxury brands to sue New York court for Alibaba sales.

Ali denied this and said it would do everything possible to monitor the sale of products on the platform.

At the same time, the company also said that it has been actively removing the suspected infringing goods, and began asking the seller to produce evidence that can prove the authenticity of the goods.

According to data from L2 Inc., a New York based market research firm, the average sales volume of the top ten Alibaba brands declined by 64% between February and September this year, but it is not clear how many of them are fake.

Tmall is falling apart. How bad is Ali's Achilles heel?

L2 Inc. Asia Pacific Research Director Daniel Baily (Danielle Bailey) said that although Ali has been cracking down on unauthorized goods, we can still easily find such products on the platform.

L2 Inc. said that even Tmall's official store brand is also suffering from unauthorized third party sellers and fakes.

For example, L2 Inc. data showed that if we searched for luxury brand Coach on Taobao in March this year, only 12% of the products on the first page of search results came from Coach official shops.

Therefore, the Coach that has entered the year has chosen to withdraw from Tmall before the double 11, but will continue to provide online shopping through the company's official website and WeChat.

Paolo Beconcini, a consultant at Hanyu international law firm, believes that the most worrying thing for these brands is that consumers are still very likely to buy fake products on the platform of Boro Beconnie.

Fakes have always been the Achilles heel of Ali.

Data show that in 2015 alone, Ali was complained about by counterfeit goods for six times by world famous companies and regulators.

Some foreign media even pointed out that Ali has become the largest fake paradise in the world.

In this regard, Alibaba repeatedly stressed that the company is sparing no effort to crack down on counterfeit goods.

Ali even appointed Matthew Basil (Matthew Bassiur) last year as the chief anti-counterfeiting officer and vice president of the group. Ma Yun said Ali will be committed to protecting consumers and intellectual property owners for a long time, and appealed to other companies in the industry to join the anti-counterfeiting camp.

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