Alibaba has launched technology designed to fight fakes, as it looks to battle mounting pressure over the prevalence of counterfeit goods on its websites.
The Chinese ecommerce group unveiled new, hard-to-copy symbols that are similar to QR codes — the square, crossword puzzle-like bar codes that can be scanned and read by a smartphone camera — will become part of product labels to ensure authenticity if Alibaba’s online sellers request them.
The announcement was designed to woo luxury brands to Alibaba’s marketplaces — L’Oréal and Ferrero Rocher, the chocolatier, already use the technology — and comes as the world’s second-largest internet company by market capitalisation is bedevilled by accusations that merchants on its platforms peddle fake goods.