Despite big data, Alibaba's Taobao back in US blacklist

The listing carries no penalties but will likely be an embarrassment for Alibaba, which has been trying to burnish its image in international markets. The move by the USTR comes even as the company claims to have used "big data" technologies to zero in, for example, on 13 factories and shops that were selling knockoff RAM modules under Kingston and Samsung brands, according to Alibaba's news hub Alizila. Its counterfeit goods monitoring and identification algorithm, for example, monitors about 100 dimensional characteristics, ranging from price to the online shops decorations, transaction records, product-release pattern and consumer complaints. Merchants and goods are rated on a 0 to 100 scale, with 80 usually treated as a red flag. The company also uses optical character recognition and the scanning and analysis of images and logos for suspicious listings.