Alibaba gets govt help to weed out fakes

HANGZHOU -- China's biggest e-commerce corporation Alibaba will work with government agencies to eliminate counterfeit goods sold on the company's shopping websites, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said Tuesday.

The company will trace sellers supplying fake goods on the Internet and share the information with the Ministry of Public Security, General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, the State Intellectual Property Office, as well as industry and commerce authorities.

The authorities will then follow the clues given by Alibaba and track down people producing the counterfeits.

"If we fail to protect intellectual property, it may develop into Alibaba's cancer," Ma said.

Alibaba saw transactions made on Taobao and Tmall, its two customer-to-customer and business-to-customer websites, exceed 1 trillion yuan ($161.8 billion) last year.

However, counterfeits bring no profits, but drives away buyers and sellers, Ma said.

Taobao last year punished 950,000 members who violated its regulations on intellectual property.

"But we can't penalize people producing fakes. It's essential to work with the government," said Shao Xiaofeng, Alibaba's chief risk officer.