Chinese authorities shut 829 websites in action against online cheating

Chinese authorities shut down 829 websites and online stores involved in selling counterfeit goods in a six-month campaign from December to May to clamp down on online cheating, the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Friday [15 July].

As of the end of May, China had investigated 628 cases of sales of counterfeit products in the crackdown campaign, MOC spokesman Yao Jian told reporters. The cases involved nearly 800 million yuan (124.3 million U.S. dollars), he said.

A total of 436 suspects were detained in the crackdown, he said.

The crackdown mainly targeted counterfeit products in sectors of news publications and daily consumer products including books, audio goods, clothing, cosmetics, food and drugs.

The country's e-commerce websites, Taobao.com, Eachnet.com and Paipai.com are the major focus of the inspection, Yao said.

As of the end of June, the three websites had closed 3,363 online stores they hosted and gave warnings to more than 65,000 others, he said.

The government will set up a long-term supervision mechanism over online shopping to prevent online cheating, he said.

Source: Xinhua news agency, Beijing, in English 0704gmt 15 Jul 11