A man holding a telephone passes a sign on the TikTok app of the Chinese company ByteDance, known locally as Douyin, at the International Artificial Products Expo in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, on 18 October 2019.
Reuters
Regulators fined Alibaba a record $ 2.8 billion over the weekend for stifling competition in online retail, and then met with subsidiary Ant on Monday and ordered the restructuring as a holding company. financial.
On Tuesday, the State Administration for Market Regulation warned 34 Chinese “Internet platforms” at a meeting to learn of the crackdown on Alibaba and present a plan for compliance with antitrust practices within a month.
Chinese regulators have focused their attention in recent months on e-commerce giant Jack Ma and its fintech subsidiary Ant Group, whose giant IPO was abruptly suspended in November. Authorities had begun investigating Alibaba in December, mainly for a practice that forced traders to choose one of the two platforms, rather than allowing them to work with both.
Details of the 12 corporate pledges released on Wednesday varied by line of business and generally discussed efforts to support fair competition and consumer data protection. Listed companies include Baidu, JD.com, Meituan, antivirus software company Qihoo 360, Twitter-like social networking platform, Sina Weibo, ByteDance, father of TikTok, the place to buy Pinduoduo electronics, Suning electronics retailer and e-commerce company Vipshop.
The announcements are the first in a series of such promises scheduled for the next three days, the regulator said.
Other names marketed in the U.S. or Hong Kong mentioned in Tuesday’s list of 34 Internet platforms that were not included in Wednesday’s initial round included iQiyi, Bilibili, Kuaishou, Mogu and 58.com.
– CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.