Graphic Online
BY: bbc.com
30.5k
Shares
705
The world s biggest online retailer - China s Alibaba - has been hit with a record fine equivalent to $2.75bn (just over £2bn).
Regulators in China said the internet giant had abused its dominant market position for several years.
In a statement, the company said it accepted the ruling and would ensure its compliance .
Analysts say the fine shows China intends to move against internet platforms that it thinks are too big.
While not well known outside China, inside the country Alibaba is an ever-present behemoth, the BBC s Robin Brant reports from Shanghai.
The company is China s Amazon meets eBay, our correspondent says. Retail is its main activity but its work has spread to digital payments, credit and cloud computing.
BBC News
Published
image copyrightGetty Images
The world s biggest online retailer - China s Alibaba - has been hit with a record fine equivalent to $2.75bn (just over £2bn).
Regulators in China said the internet giant had abused its dominant market position for several years.
In a statement the company said it accepted the ruling and would ensure its compliance .
Analysts say the fine shows China intends to move against internet platforms that it thinks are too big.
While not well known outside China, inside the country Alibaba is an ever-present behemoth, the BBC s Robin Brant reports from Shanghai.
The company is China s Amazon meets eBay, our correspondent says. Retail is its main activity but its work has spread to digital payments, credit and cloud computing.
Alibaba: Chinese regulator slaps huge fine on tech giant bbc.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bbc.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
China has imposed sanctions on more than two dozen European and British lawmakers, academics and think tanks. The move comes after the European Union and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights abuses in China s Xinjiang region.
China contends that its sanctions are tit for tat morally equivalent retaliation in response to those imposed by Western countries. This is false. The European sanctions are for crimes against humanity, whereas the Chinese sanctions seek to silence European critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
The current standoff is, in essence, about the future of free speech in Europe. If notoriously feckless European officials fail to stand firm in the face of mounting Chinese pressure, Europeans who dare publicly to criticize the CCP in the future can expect to pay an increasingly high personal cost for doing so.