The agreement between the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Alibaba Group has been renewed. The goal is to promote Italian food excellence and combat counterfeit products. The agreement consolidates the existing collaboration, confirming its strategic role in the promotion of Italian agricultural and food excellence of certified quality and protection of consumers and online buyers.
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Through the Icqrf (Central Inspectorate for the protection of quality and fraud repression of agri-food products), suspicious orders and products that violate or evoke protected Geographical Indications can in fact be reported directly to Alibaba’s intellectual property protection system.
THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN ITALY AND ALIBABA
The alliance between the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and Alibaba, against counterfeiting for the protection of brands of origin, began in 2016. About 200 product listings have been removed since then within Alibaba’s B2B and B2C marketplaces.
In order to identify fakes, the Italian Ministry has set up an operational task force which daily searches for counterfeit products and reports them to the Chinese e-commerce portal. Within 3 days the illicit listings are removed and sellers are informed that they are violating Italian Geographical Indications. Thanls to the new agreement, there are currently 41 Italian GIs recognized and protected within Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms.