China cracks down on false advertising in ecommerce ahead of Alibaba's Singles Day

China has passed new legislation which means websites could be fined for publishing false advertisements on their products.

The law was approved on Saturday by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and comes as an amendment to the existing Anti-Unfair Competition Law.

Offenses can include deleting negative comments or publishing fake positive reviews, with fines ranging from $30,000 to $150,000. More serious offences can result in a fine of $300,000 or a company having its business license revoked.

See also:

Alibaba leads $335mn investment in Chinese online car sales start-up

US tech moguls Zuckerberg and Cook meet with Xi Jinping 

Business Review Asia - November issue out now! 

This comes before Singles Day, made into an e-commerce festival mainly led by Alibaba which last year involved over 657mn orders and over $18bn worth of sales in just 24 hours. Though the festival started in China it has now gained popularity in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In the past, Alibaba has been criticised for failing to police its sellers, and inefficiently dealing with issues like “brushing” which involved sellers posting fake sales to boost their position in ecommerce search engines.

In August, a “cyber court” was launched to deal with the rise in internet-related crime in China, including within ecommerce.

According to China Daily, Yang Hongcan, director of the China Anti-Monopoly and Anti-Unfair Competition Enforcement Bureaus stated: “As several kinds of online shopping festivals make the market prosperous, some taking advantage of fake advertisements or false transactions to lure customers also arouse our attention.”

Share

Featured Articles

Top 10 fastest-growing companies across the Asia-Pacific

From Singapore to South Korea, Hong Kong to India, and spanning fintech, food and energy – these 10 businesses are seeing their revenues rise, and fast

Top 10 best-performing Australian companies: mines to banks

Among Australia’s largest companies by market cap are the country’s Big Four banks, a tech startup that successfully scaled, and two firms with female CEOs

Top 10 richest Southeast Asia: how they made their fortunes

From Singapore’s paint tycoon to Malaysia’s sugar king, we round up the 10 richest people in Southeast Asia – and investigate how they made their billions

Will moonlighting ever become accepted practice in India?

Human Capital

New YouTube CEO Neal Mohan joins surge of Indian-origin CEOs

Leadership & Strategy

Ex Infosys President Ravi Kumar is the CEO Cognizant needs

Leadership & Strategy