The United States Trade Representative (USTR) released its yearly blacklist mentioning marketplaces that are prevalent of fake and smuggled or pirated goods recently. Listed in the "Special 301" report are several shopping sites and places that are expected to be included in the list, such as the silk market in Beijing, the social network VK.com, and The Pirate Bay, initially formed by an anti-copyright organization.

One of the names in the list seems a bit contentious, although, Taobao Marketplace, an e-commerce giant owned by the Alibaba group. Recently, Daniel Zhang, Alibaba group CEO, gets back at the USTR, questioning the state department's decision to include Taobao in the list as a "notorious marketplace" to the growing American idea of protectionism.

Donald Trump, the recently elected US president, ran a campaign about protectionism. Donald Trump usually targets and mentions that he is not in favor of agreements on free trade, outsourcing and other angles of worldwide trade that the president-elect believes that killed the job in the United States.

Daniel Zhang warned in an email that was published on-line and was also sent to all hired personnel stating, "Protectionism is ever present around the world and influences that are not free market-oriented come into play. As we accelerate our pace of globalization, certain countries will deploy all sorts of ways to fence themselves off. We are committed to protecting intellectual property, but will not be bullied by those who exploit the issue for unfair advantage."

The US State Office releases the special report annually, to warn consumers that do not want to get imitation products, fake goods, pirated apps and content that which usually includes a malware software. Although, the report is sometimes utilized as a means to pressure corporations, companies and even governments to implement international IP rules that are of benefit to American business to fairly compete in the world market.

Taobao has not been on the blacklist for the past four years until the recent release, though the company was in a bit of conflict with the French, Americans and other luxury brands in the early part of the year. The Internation Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC) denied a special membership for Taobao, spring this year, after several complaints coming from the fashion industry and Intellectual Property firms.

The Company's release to their investors that the mobile app of Taobao boasts several hundreds of millions of daily usage and 20 million of product review posts daily at the site. The collective businesses of Alibaba revenue at $500 billion in goods sold last 2015, from millions of people using the platform as their base of operations.

Daniel Zhang, publicly stated that the company is constantly pushing efforts for the company to stop pirates and fakers. The company utilized big data analytics to pinpoint nonconforming sellers alongside with the law enforcement to stop factories and jail counterfeiters. The company claims it has removed 16 times more compared to the count that IP attorneys and luxury brands reported that violates their IP rights this year. The possible reason behind s probably the difficulty in filing complaints against Alibaba's site on regard to IP violations.

The United States Trade Representative specified in the special report, the suggested and ideal ways to improve Alibaba's status by, "Simplifying processes for right holders to register and request enforcement action; making good faith takedown procedures generally available, and reducing Taobao's timelines for takedowns and issuing penalties for counterfeit sellers."