Bottom line: The inclusion of Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace on the latest edition of a US blacklist for piracy signals US is taking a tougher line on trade issues.
Alibaba calls itself ‘scapegoat’ after landing on US blacklist
What a difference a year makes. It was just about this time a year ago that Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) founder Jack Ma scored a major coup by becoming the first major Chinese business leader to score a visit with incoming US President Donald Trump. (previous post) The pair were all smiles back then, with Ma trumpeting a plan to create 1 million American jobs by helping US businesses selling their products into China over Alibaba’s popular e-commerce platforms.
Fast forward to the present, where Ma isn’t smiling anymore, and Alibaba has even taken the unusual step of accusing Trump of making the company into a scapegoat in a growing tide of US protectionism. The abrupt turnabout hinges on two major developments, the most recent being the placement of Alibaba’s consumer-to-consumer (C2C) Taobao website on Washington’s annual “notorious” list of marketplaces with rampant trafficking in pirated goods. That follows another setback for Ma earlier this month when a plan by his Ant Financial saw its plan for a major US acquisition crushed by the Trump administration. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba’s anti-piracy PR blitz during the National People’s Congress is aimed at getting attention during the high-profile event, but it will need to keep up its efforts to convince the public and officials its effort is sincere.
Alibaba calls for tougher anti-piracy laws
As the National People’s Congress (NPC) kicks into high gear in Beijing, e-commerce leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is using the annual session of China’s legislature as a soapbox to make its case that it’s being tough in the battle against piracy. In the last 2 weeks alone, founder Jack Ma has made two high-profile declarations on the subject, one equating the problem to the drunk driving menace and the other calling for his country to create tougher laws to fight the problem. Lest anyone think Alibaba is trying to pass the buck, the company has also announced it has filed a lawsuit against a maker of counterfeit pet food. Read Full Post…
Two names closely associated with e-commerce are in the headlines, led by industry leader Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), which is coming under fresh assault from a coalition of US trade groups for allowing trafficking in pirated goods in its online marketplaces. The other headline involves parcel delivery giant ZTO Express (NYSE: ZTO), which is coming under a different kind of assault as investors dumped its newly-listed New York shares on their first trading day after an impressive $1.4 billion IPO. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba will have to spend more heavily to rid its marketplaces of trafficking in pirated goods, while its Steven Spielberg partnership is part of a new wave of deeper film tie-ups between China and Hollywood.
Alibaba ties with Spielberg’s Amblin
Internet giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is being rebuffed and embraced in the US in 2 separate headlines, reflecting conflicting feelings many Americans have towards one of China’s largest private companies and their sometimes controversial business practices. In the more upbeat headline, Alibaba’s movie-making unit has just signed a major new tie-up with director Steven Spielberg to co-produce movies from his Amblin Entertainment and distribute them in China. But in a far less friendly overture, Alibaba is also being blasted by a major US apparel group for lack of progress in its battle to stamp out trafficking in pirated goods in its online marketplaces. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba’s victory in a shareholder lawsuit is partly justified due to its pre-IPO disclosure that piracy is a major risk for the company, but it still should have disclosed a recent government report sharply criticizing it on the matter.
Alibaba triumphs in shareholder lawsuit
E-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is a master at influencing public opinion through its own hype, but is far less successful with government officials who often view its aggressive ways with more skepticism. With that background in mind, the company’s new courtroom victory in a shareholder lawsuit looks like a refreshing nod of approval from a government source, setting it apart from the usual cheers from fans of the company’s stock. I would probably agree with that view, even though in this case I’m not sure I completely agree with the judge’s decision. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: A brouhaha that has seen Alibaba suspended from an anti-counterfeiting group just a month after joining is an embarrassment but won’t have a major longer-term impact on the company’s stock.
Tiffany quits anti-piracy group after Alibaba joins
A brouhaha over the admission of Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) to a leading US anti-piracy coalition has taken a somewhat strange twist, with word that the group has formally suspended the e-commerce giant just a month after it joined. The development occurred after several of the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition’s (IACC) members quit after the group accepted Alibaba, including the latest defection last week by Tiffany & Co.
Tiffany’s defection followed earlier withdrawals from the IACC by 2 other luxury goods makers, Michael Kors and then Gucci a short time later. (previous post) The coalition’s members were unhappy because of Alibaba’s previous status as operator of marketplaces with rampant trafficking in counterfeit goods, even though the company has pledged to strongly step up its fight against such trade. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba is placing its take-out dining service bets on Ele.me with its new $1.25 billion investment, and will spend other major resources next year to try to clean up its sites of trafficking in fake goods.
Alibaba invests in Ele.me
E-commerce juggernaut Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) is back in the M&A market, gobbling up a headline-grabbing 28 percent of leading online-to-offline (O2O) take-out dining service Ele.me for a tidy $1.25 billion. Alibaba has yet to confirm the deal, which would become the latest in a growing string of investments worth $1 billion or more for the company. A deal of this size would have been major news just 3 years ago before a wave of M&A began sweeping China’s Internet, though now such transactions have become far more common.
Meantime, Alibaba is in another set of headlines in its battle against piracy, with word that it’s adding 200 people to the team charged with ridding its huge online marketplaces of trafficking in pirated goods. This particular move comes less than 2 weeks after Alibaba managed to avoid seeing its name reappear in an annual US list of the world’s most notorious marketplaces for trafficking in pirated goods. Having dodged that bullet, Alibaba is now showing it plans to get far more serious in tackling the problem next year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Apple should put out a short statement to answer online chatter that its new China headquarters looks like an older software park in Shandong, while Alibaba’s latest high-profile hire is its own move to tackle piracy on its sites.
Alibaba prioritizes piracy in 2016
A trio of piracy-related stories are in the headlines as we head into year-end, reflecting the recent focus that Beijing has put on an issue that is likely to get big attention in 2016. Leading the news are online observations by some web surfers that Apple’s (Nasdaq: AAPL) new China headquarters building bears a striking resemblance to a much older software park in northeastern Shandong province.
Next there’s the announcement of a major new anti-piracy hire by e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba (NYSE: BABA), which dodged a bullet last week by keeping its name off an annual US list naming the world’s most notorious markets for pirated goods. Alibaba’s new announcement has seen it name a former top Apple investigator to lead a renewed campaign to rid its online marketplaces of trafficking in pirated goods. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Alibaba is the biggest winner by keeping its name off an annual US piracy list, but the victory is only partial due to a strong warning in the report to improve its anti-piracy efforts.
US warns Alibaba to step up anti-piracy actions
After months of behind-the-scenes lobbying in Washington, e-commerce giant Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) has managed to keep its name from reappearing on an annual US list of “notorious” global markets for piracy that has just been published. But the victory is really only partial, since the US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office has devoted quite a lot of space to Alibaba in the latest edition of its Notorious Markets report, expressing its concerns about the rate of trafficking in pirated goods on some of Alibaba’s sites.
This long-awaited decision appears to be a compromise, aimed at appeasing some groups that wanted to see Alibaba’s name reappear on the list, including the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which issued several strongly-worded statements on the matter. The matter put the USTR in an awkward position, because it had previously removed Alibaba’s name from the list in 2012, only to see Alibaba strongly criticized for continued rampant piracy by Beijing early this year. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: JD’s decision to shutter its Paipai C2C marketplace looks like a smart move, as China looks set to crack down on online trafficking in fake goods that is often rampant and hard to police on such sites.
JD to shutter Paipai by next April
E-commerce JD.com(Nasdaq: JD) has just announced it is formally shuttering it Paipai C2C site, citing difficulties policing the thousands of small merchants and individuals who sell products on the site. Timing of the move is slightly strange, since JD announced the downbeat decision just a day before the November 11 Singles Day, which has become the world’s biggest day for online shoppers.
On the surface at least, the move looks like a major victory for archrival Alibaba(NYSE: BABA), whose Taobao online marketplace competes directly with Paipai and controls the vast majority of China’s C2C e-commerce market. But the move also represents a major tactical decision for JD, since C2C markets are notoriously difficult to police for fakes, substandard products and fraud due to the huge number of merchants they host. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Baidu’s reported plan to sell its online music unit looks like a smart way to rid itself of a controversial piracy-plagued business that holds little value for its main strategic focuses going forward.
Baidu set to dump music unit?
In what could be a move that’s long overdue, leading search engine Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) is reportedly eyeing a sale of a music division that was once one of its major attractions but in recent years has become more a liability due to frequent accusations of copyright violations. Baidu wasn’t commenting on the reports, but such a move would be consistent with its recent diversification into a range of new areas, none of which include music as part of their core business.
Such a deal, if it’s really in the works, probably wouldn’t be worth too much, perhaps in the $100-$500 million range at the very most. More significantly would be the disposal of a unit that in the past has come under fire for allowing rampant piracy through illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) trading of copyrighted music. Read Full Post…
