'Double 11' reignites concerns about fakes

Concerns over counterfeit goods sold on online shopping platforms have re-emerged ahead of the world's largest shopping spree, the "Singles' Day." E-commerce giant, Alibaba has dismissed the concerns as "gossip and attacks."

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) met with Alibaba, JD.com, Amazon.com Inc, Baidu Inc, Tencent Holdings and several other Internet companies on Monday, requiring them to avoid selling fakes, falsifying sales figures or engaging in other fraudulent activities during the Singles' Day shopping festival, according a press release on the SAIC's official website.

Concerns on fake products have cast a shadow on the shopping festival on Friday in spite of the boom in the e-commerce industry.

Cai Guyao, a frequent Alibaba consumer, told the Global Times on Thursday that she only buys stuff from authorized online shops of brands. "I have concerns about counterfeit goods on Taobao, a platform owned by Alibaba, because there are simply too many fakes on the platform," Cai said.

Another consumer surnamed Lin said that she bought a bag of matcha (green tea) on an Alibaba platform, only to find that the tea was simply made of mung beans. "The tea also caused dizziness," said Lin.

In October, the American Apparel & Footwear Association called on the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to relist Alibaba in the "Notorious Market" category of 2016 for counterfeit goods, according to a filing the association sent to the representative's office.

But Zheng Junfang, chief platform governance officer at Alibaba Group, said in a statement sent to the Global Times that Alibaba plays a key role in combating counterfeiting since the company has 400 million consumers, thousands of sellers and billions of commodities.

Any party which is devoted to fighting piracy should not ignore Alibaba's efforts, said Zheng.

On July 1, Alibaba unveiled a new online system to track and remove fake products and pledged greater cooperation with global brands at a conference on intellectual property.