Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma Refuses to Speak at the IACC Conference

Chairman Jack Ma refuses to speak after brands left out IACC to protest against Alibaba's membership in it

Amidst a growing controversy regarding whether Alibaba Group Holding Limited is acting sufficiently to battle with counterfeits on its online marketplaces, the Chinese E-commerce company has cancelled its co-founder and Chairman Jack Ma’s participation this week at the yearly conference of an important anti-counterfeiting group. The company’s spokesperson stated Michael Evans, who serves as the president of the Hangzhou based organization, will speak at the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition(IACC) in the US city of Orlando, on 19^th May instead of Jack

The IACC had admitted the online retailer as its members in April this year, but stated recent week it was removing the newly-developed category under which the web retailer was admitted “in consideration of some of the concerns raised by our membership.” In the recent week, Mr Jack was yet scheduled to address. Micheal Kors, which left from the coalition in April to protest against the membership of Alibaba, stated permitting the organization to become a member of the IACC, provided “cover to our most dangerous and damaging adversary.” 

Gucci America has also quitted the group and the French luxurious band Longchamp stated it would not participate in the yearly meeting. IACC, which is amongst the biggest groups working to fight pirated as well as fake goods, was not immediately available for sharing views. Having President Mr Michael speak“just adds insult to injury,”  stated lawyer Kristina Montanaro Schrader representing over 12 brands.

Michael Kors had censured the coalition’s email in April 2016 to members “enthusiastically”  Jack as the key note speaker. Some members of IACC stated they might yet boycott any Alibaba speech. “I am not interested in hearing Mr. Ma speak nor anyone from Alibaba speak” regarding the move it’s taking to battle akes stated IPCybercrime CEO Rob Holmes, which lets brands monitor fake goods online. 

On 17^th May 2016, Alibaba stated it has a “zero tolerance” policy for fake items and holds the belief that the most effective means to resolve the matter is by jointly working with brands. The category suspension by the coalition under which the online trading platform operator was given membership is a  move “in the wrong direction and regrettable,” the company stated.

Instead of preparing for the important address, Mr Jack toured the White House and had a meeting with President of the United States Barak Obama in an off-the-record, unpublicized meeting. The web retailer confirmed that the meeting took place, but refused to further comment. In November 2015, Obama and Jack had a meeting during which President Barak interviewed Jack on the stage at the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Last week,a nameless letter  that stated  it was from international brands asked the board of IACC to hold a  town-hall meeting  to deliberate upon the concerns of the brand or risk an “empty room” if Mr Jack took the decision to address the conference. The sender wasn’t verified by the Wall Street Journal.

Alibaba Joins Hand with SoftBank to Establish a Cloud Services Venture

The online retailer has collaborated with SoftBank to establish a cloud venture for getting access to a large number of Japanese customers

The Japanese telecommunications service provider and Chinese E-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Limited have established a joint-venture cloud service provider known as SB Cloud to offer Alibaba Cloud’s solutions and technology to Japan based businesses. SB cloud will have its headquarters in Minato-ku, Tokyo, and will set up a datacenter to provide the online retailer’s data storage, middleware offerings, processing solutions and cloud security facilities.

In return, the Hangzhou based organization will attain access to the current Japanese customer base of SoftBank. According to CEO of SB Cloud Eric Gan, who also offers services as SoftBank’s EVP—Alibaba’s major shareholder—the organizations working on the joint project for many months before the announcement was done on 13^th May 2016.

"I believe the JV team can develop the most advanced cloud platform for Japanese customers, as well as for multinational customers who want to use the resources we have available in Japan," stated Gan. The 2 organizations have earlier cooperated on robotics, with the online marketplace operator investing $118 million in SoftBank Robotics in June 2015.

In April 2015,Jack Ma’s organization also introduced its cloud startup program in Singapore, paying a credit of $10,000 for specific startups and help from engineers of the web retailer to develop cloud-enabled applications; dedicated information technology support; and access to the associated incubators of the E-commerce organziation, industry partnerships, funding and working spaces like Hong Kong Science Park as well as Silicon Valley Association of Chinese Entrepreneurs.

In Singapore, Alibaba runs a cloud datacenter, which is also the global head office for its cloud operations. In recent times, it announced sales revenue of $3.7 trillion( $24 trillion yuan) for the 3 months ending at  31^st March next year, a growth by 39% on an annual basis. Its cloud computation business grew its sales revenue by 175% on an yearly basis to over $153 million, recording half a million paying consumers.

"Our focus on long-term strategic priorities -- globalisation, rural expansion, building a world-class cloud computing business, and creating a comprehensive media and entertainment platform -- has laid a strong foundation for future growth,"  stated CEO of Alibaba Group Daniel Zhang.

In April 2016, the company purchased a controlling stake worth a billion dollars in the Lazada Group, which is a Singaporean E-commerce operator, in order to boost its global presence: in Feb 2016 purchased shares worth $101,224,000 in Groupon and shares of Weibo worth $1.1 million, and has paid a total of $455 million on the Singaporean postal and telecommunication service provider SingPost

In March 2015, SoftBank announced it would be dividing its company into 2 distinct entities for global operations and local operations by late 2016. As per reports by Bloomberg, Japan’s third biggest phone business owner SoftBank, will have a 60% share in the newly established project while the online retailer will keep the rest.

The online trading organization previously collaborated with American management service provider Accenture Plc to aim at clients in Southeast Asia, and stated in April it would collaborate with the German organization SAP Se.

Facebook CEO asks People To Safeguard Whatsapp By Protesting

The American social networking service provider calls people to protest in a favor of a legislation aiming to safeguard WhatsApp from suspension

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Brazilians to raise a demand that his American social networking organization’s messaging service WhatsApp should never be suspended again on 2^nd May 2016 overturned the second suspension of the application in 5 months.  In a post on his Facebook page, Mark urged Brazilians to gather outside Brazil’s legislature Congress in Brasilia, which is the Brazilian capital at 2100 GMT( 6pm) on 4^th April 2016 to rally for favoring a law that would ban the internet services suspension in the future.

On 2^nd April 2016 WhatsApp was blocked in Brazil after a judge in the Brazilian state Sergpie ordered the 5 main telecoms of the country to suspend access to the application for 3 days. The reason behind the order wasn’t publicized. The suspension of the text message as well as internet voice telephone facility of WhatsApp for smartphones was lifted after around a day when an appeals judge on 3^rd April 2016 gave a ruling favoring an injunction by the lawyers of the organization.

You and your friends can help make sure this never happens again, and I hope you get involved,” Zuckerberg posted on the platform. He mentioned  a uniform resource locator  to a request, calling efforts made to suspend communication “very scary in a democracy”.

The block highlights increasing global tensions between the privacy concerns of the tech companies and efforts of the national authorities to use social network to gain details on potential criminal activities. The same judge in the state gave an order to imprison a Brazil-based official of Facebook in March in a battle over demands to reach the encrypted messaging facility of company under a drug trafficking probe.

On 2^nd April 2016, WhatsApp stated it was “disappointed” at the decision by judge to block its facilities. It stated it missed the utmost to collaborate with tribunals in Brazil, but it didn’t possess the details the court requested it to provide. Spokesman of Facebook Matt Steinfeld stated officials of WhatsApp recently had a meeting with judicial officals and law enforcers to enhance communication and clarify that the organization can’t see encrypted messages of users and doesn’t store them following transmission.

In 5 months, WhatsApp has been blocked second time in the nation.  A São Paulo state judge ruled it close down for 2 days on 15^th December, after the networking organization was unable to act according to a ruling. Another state court lifted that ban shortly afterwards.

The suspension on Monday angered a large number of people in the state, where the messaging service is by far the most famous messaging application and installed on over 90% of Android products.

Amazon Offers Prime Service To Previously Neglected Black Communities

The American online retailer to provide its Prime facility to the South side of Chicago, Bronx and Boston neighborhood of Roxbury

Amazon will offer same-day delivery service to the Bronx and the South side of Chicago, after being criticized by elected members that the data-driven service limitations of the organization left out a number of minority communities unjustly.

The American e-commerce company has promised to extend its free same-delivery facility in at least three cities after Bloomberg News conducted an analysis that laid emphasis on racial differences in places where the facility was offered in a number of cities including Washington, New York, Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Altanta.

The online retailer promised to deliver quickly to the Boston neighborhood of Roxbury, which is pre-dominated by the black community recent week after being criticized for excluding it. Then the online retailer promised to bring the facility to the Bronx- the only city borough of New York excluded and the South side of Chicago, in letters written on April 29 to elected representatives of those regions.

The company started to offer its same-day delivery facility free of charge as a benefit of being an Amazon Prime member, which is offered at a price of $99 per year. It is currently offered in 27 metropolitan cities. The determination of the service boundaries were done by the number of Prime members in every region, nearly to warehouses where items are stored and the ability of the organization to look for delivery partners to serve a particular area.

US Representative Rush, who is an Illinois democrat advised the Federal Trade Commission to probe the same- day delivery limitations of Amazon to find out whether they were unjust or if the organization is employing misleading business practices that breach federal legislations. The Seattle based organization promised to offer the facility to the Bronx and the South side of Chicago “in coming weeks,” in similar letters written by Brian Huseman, who is the organization’s VP of public policy, to political leaders in those regions.

Race did not take part in the procedure, Amazon stated. In most cities, including San Francisco, Philadelphia and Seattle, the online trading platform operator offered the facility throughout the region and there weren’t disparities. The company has highlighted that it’s a growing and new facility with limitations that are extending with the passage of time.

The Bloomberg Businessweek analysis laid emphasis upon how a number of data based decisions can lead to racially disparate results. Data scientists are studying that more closely in an effort to avoid such untargeted bias. Dinowitz and Diaz stated they were happy the web retailer is extending the facility to the Bronx.