The USTR (United States Trade Representative) has recently added websites operated by Chinese technology giants Alibaba and Tencent to its “Notorious Markets List” of businesses, which it believes are involved in trading counterfeit goods and promoting piracy.

The official data identified 42 websites and 35 physical stores, including e-commerce based platforms, run by the firms. Given that US and China have been in a long-running dispute in terms of trade and technology, there’s a possibility that the new additions to the list were prompted by some underlying cause.

Some notable brands that this list features are AliExpress, owned by the Alibaba group, along with the Tencent-operated WeChat. The USTR claimed that AliExpress offered a number of anti-counterfeiting services and systems, however, despite the platform’s efforts, they found a significant increase in counterfeit goods being sold through the website.

Similarly, the USTR also called out WeChat’s e-commerce ecosystem for facilitating the distribution and sale of forged goods.

The US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement,

The global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods undermines critical US innovation and creativity and harms American workers.

Meanwhile, a statement issued by Tencent demonstrated complete disagreement with the decision made by the USTR saying that the platform is committed to working collaboratively to resolve the matter and has invested significant resources into protecting intellectual property rights as well. Since the news arrives amidst the ongoing crises between the US and China, it remains to be seen how the situation unfolds for the two major China-based e-commerce platforms.

Source: Pro Pakistani