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在线翻译:
szdaily -> Opinion -> 
Fighting fakes needs joint efforts
    2015-02-09  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Wu Guangqiang

    jw368@163.com

    THE recent verbal grenades between e-commerce giant Alibaba and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) demonstrate how good intentions can go awry if emotion and impulse sway contending parties. And the swift conclusion of the row, with both sides pledging to work together to fight online sales of counterfeit goods, marked the formation of a more mature working relationship between Chinese businesses and the market regulator.

    On Jan. 23, SAIC released a quality-check report on goods sold online. According to the survey, less than 60 percent of goods bought online are genuine and meet national quality standards. The study showed that only 54 out of 92 items purchased from online shopping sites between August and October 2014 were authentic. The survey, intentionally or unintentionally, led readers to another conclusion: The biggest offender was Taobao because only 19 out of 51 items bought there were genuine.

    On Jan. 27, Alibaba responded by posting on its official Weibo account an open letter by an anonymous Taobao employee that accused Liu Hongliang, an SAIC official in charge of supervising the e-commerce business, of procedural misconduct during the supervision process.

    The brawl escalated in the following days, with neither side showing willingness to compromise. On Jan. 28, SAIC published a strongly worded white paper that accused Alibaba of failing to check identities of vendors who were selling fake items. However, the white paper was removed from the SAIC website hours later.

    On the same day, Taobao decided to file a complaint with SAIC against Liu, claiming his misconduct negatively impacted Taobao and China’s e-commerce sector.

    Unexpected fallout of the dispute is a possible lawsuit initiated by five U.S. law firms. The legal threat came after Alibaba witnessed the biggest drop in its stock price since its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in September, in which its shares tumbled for two days, knocking US$38 billion off Alibaba’s US$264 billion market capitalization. The firms said they were conducting an investigation on behalf of Alibaba investors to determine whether the company had engaged in inadequate disclosure and made false statements.

    As a market watchdog, SAIC has the power and duty to oversee business operations to make sure every company abides by the law. So SAIC was in the right when it disclosed problems on Alibaba’s sales platforms such as infringing trademarks, shoddy goods and illegal imports.

    Yet the watchdog’s well-intentioned report backfired because of its rough and unscientific method of sampling and the possibility of targeting a specific company.

    Obviously, if SAIC tried to deduce that 63 percent of goods sold on Taobao are fake by sampling a mere 51 items, and without specifying how the 51 items were selected, the result is untenable. Despite the possibility that there are more fake goods on Taobao than on other online websites, official regulators need more scientific evidence to support their conclusions.

    It’s also unfair to blame Alibaba for shirking its responsibility to curb rampant sales of fake goods. Alibaba has spent over 1 billion yuan (US$163 million) fighting counterfeit goods and improving customer protection during the past two years.

    

    On the other hand, as one of the world’s largest Internet companies, Alibaba needs to be more cool-headed when dealing with criticism, even when it is being unfairly targeted. Openly confronting the regulator in such a high-profile manner has led some to believe that the e-commerce giant does not face its problems squarely.

    Some Chinese companies become complacent after reaching a new high in business, and their pride often leads to harm in the end.

    Realizing the importance of a rational conversation, both sides chose to quickly settle the dispute. On the night of Jan. 30, Zhang Mao, chief of SAIC, met with Jack Ma, Alibaba’s chairperson, and they agreed to work together to “explore ways to manage the Internet economy.”

    Ma promised to spend more resources on fighting counterfeit goods and to work more closely with law enforcement.

    Reining in the rampancy of counterfeit goods on- and offline requires joint efforts. SAIC should behave more professionally, all Internet commerce companies should be more self-disciplined and consumers should shop more wisely.

    Hopefully, this controversy will serve as a positive lesson for us all.

    (The author is an English tutor and freelance writer.)

    

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