阿
里巴巴集团(Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.)周四说，其在线购物网站暂时禁止卖家使用与微信(WeChat)相关的营销和推广应用。微信是腾讯控股(Tencent Holdings Ltd.)旗下的移动消息服务。
Associated Press
2012年5月12日，星期一，在浙江杭州阿里巴巴集团总部，几名年轻男子从阿里巴巴的公司标志前走过。
不同于亚马逊(Amazon.com Inc.)，阿里巴巴并不销售产品，而是运营网站，供卖家寻找买家。淘宝网上的卖家大多是小商家，而天猫商城则有耐克(Nike)和Gap等大品牌入驻。
另外，阿里巴巴周四说，该公司和新浪(Sina Corp.)旗下类似推特(Twitter)的微博(Weibo)业务即将推出适用于淘宝的微博版本，整合这两项服务的用户账号。阿里巴巴持有微博股份。阿里巴巴说，微博还将向淘宝卖家提供营销服务，帮助他们在微博上宣传产品。
阿里巴巴说，上述两项公告虽然在同一天发布，但并无关系。该公司说，其决定暂停与微信相关的应用，原因是接到在淘宝和天猫上购物的消费者投诉，说他们在微信上收到的卖家促销信息数量过多。阿里巴巴说，有时卖家还利用微信应用引导购物者越过阿里巴巴旗下支付宝(Alipay)运行的支付程序。
但这些举措仍引发人们质疑，阿里巴巴是否在试图保护用户数据库不被腾讯获得，同时加深与另一家社交网络的合作关系。阿里巴巴试图维持对其广泛的用户数据库的控制，包括支付数据，而微信相关的应用会阻碍阿里巴巴的这一努力。
但阿里巴巴集团发言人Florence Shih说，决定阻止微信相关应用的唯一原因是确保淘宝和天猫购物者的交易安全。
她说，有很多使用微信的方式不会冒犯到买家，我们对此没有意见。
记者无法立即联络腾讯发言人置评。
阿里巴巴主导着中国快速增长的电子商务市场，而腾讯的长处在于社交媒体和游戏，而且由于微信的普及，腾讯在智能手机用户中有着强大的用户群体。
随着交易和其他在线活动转向智能手机，阿里巴巴已经采取了一些措施适应这种变化。今年4月，阿里巴巴达成以5.86亿美元收购新浪微博业务18%股份的交易，从而赢得了挖掘微博强大手机用户群体的机会，这也是阿里巴巴急需达成的联盟，旨在让淘宝和其他阿里巴巴服务获得更多手机访问流量。
周四，阿里巴巴说，淘宝和微博将整合用户账号，这样人们无论在二者中的哪个站点登录，都可以同时登录两个网站。两家公司还将推出在微博展示淘宝售卖商品的新方式，人们可以从微博直接下单定购。
Juro Osawa
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. said Thursday that its online shopping sites are temporarily blocking sellers from subscribing to marketing and promotion apps linked with rival Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s WeChat mobile messaging service.
Sellers on Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall sites have been using such apps to send promotional messages to online shoppers.
Unlike Amazon.com Inc., Alibaba doesn't sell products but operates websites that allow sellers to find buyers. Sellers on Taobao are mostly small merchants, while Tmall hosts major brands such as Nike and Gap.
Separately on Thursday, Alibaba said that the company and Sina Corp.'s Twitter-like Weibo microblog business in which Alibaba holds a stake ─ are launching a Taobao-friendly version of Weibo, integrating user accounts for the two services. Weibo will also provide Taobao sellers with marketing services to help them promote their products on the microblog, Alibaba said.
Alibaba said the two announcements, even though they came on the same day, are not related. The company said it decided to suspend the WeChat-related apps because it received complaints from consumers shopping on its Taobao and Tmall sites that they were getting an "excessive" number of promotional messages on WeChat from sellers. In some cases, Alibaba said, sellers were using the apps to guide shoppers outside of the online payment process run by Alipay, an Alibaba affiliate.
Still, the moves raise questions about whether Alibaba is trying to protect its user database from Tencent while deepening its partnership with another social network. WeChat-related apps could be getting in the way of Alibaba's attempt to maintain its comprehensive user database including payment data under its control.
But Alibaba spokeswoman Florence Shih said that the sole reason behind the decision to block the apps is to ensure secure transactions for shoppers on Taobao and Tmall.
"There are ways to use WeChat that don't offend our buyers, and we have no issue with that," she said.
A Tencent spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.
While Alibaba dominates China's fast-growing e-commerce market, Tencent's strengths lie in social media and gaming and it has a strong user base among smartphone users thanks to the popularity of WeChat.
As transactions and other online activities move to smartphones, Alibaba has already taken steps to adapt. In April, Alibaba struck a deal to buy an 18% stake in Sina's Weibo business for $586 million, gaining an opportunity to tap into the social media site's strong mobile user base ─ a much-needed alliance to bring more mobile traffic to Taobao and other Alibaba services,
On Thursday, Alibaba said that Taobao and Weibo will integrate user accounts so people can log into both services from either site. The companies are also introducing new ways to display products sold on Taobao on Weibo and allow people to place an order directly from Weibo.
Juro Osawa
Sellers on Alibaba's Taobao and Tmall sites have been using such apps to send promotional messages to online shoppers.
Unlike Amazon.com Inc., Alibaba doesn't sell products but operates websites that allow sellers to find buyers. Sellers on Taobao are mostly small merchants, while Tmall hosts major brands such as Nike and Gap.
Separately on Thursday, Alibaba said that the company and Sina Corp.'s Twitter-like Weibo microblog business in which Alibaba holds a stake ─ are launching a Taobao-friendly version of Weibo, integrating user accounts for the two services. Weibo will also provide Taobao sellers with marketing services to help them promote their products on the microblog, Alibaba said.
Alibaba said the two announcements, even though they came on the same day, are not related. The company said it decided to suspend the WeChat-related apps because it received complaints from consumers shopping on its Taobao and Tmall sites that they were getting an "excessive" number of promotional messages on WeChat from sellers. In some cases, Alibaba said, sellers were using the apps to guide shoppers outside of the online payment process run by Alipay, an Alibaba affiliate.
Still, the moves raise questions about whether Alibaba is trying to protect its user database from Tencent while deepening its partnership with another social network. WeChat-related apps could be getting in the way of Alibaba's attempt to maintain its comprehensive user database including payment data under its control.
But Alibaba spokeswoman Florence Shih said that the sole reason behind the decision to block the apps is to ensure secure transactions for shoppers on Taobao and Tmall.
"There are ways to use WeChat that don't offend our buyers, and we have no issue with that," she said.
A Tencent spokeswoman could not be immediately reached for comment.
While Alibaba dominates China's fast-growing e-commerce market, Tencent's strengths lie in social media and gaming and it has a strong user base among smartphone users thanks to the popularity of WeChat.
As transactions and other online activities move to smartphones, Alibaba has already taken steps to adapt. In April, Alibaba struck a deal to buy an 18% stake in Sina's Weibo business for $586 million, gaining an opportunity to tap into the social media site's strong mobile user base ─ a much-needed alliance to bring more mobile traffic to Taobao and other Alibaba services,
On Thursday, Alibaba said that Taobao and Weibo will integrate user accounts so people can log into both services from either site. The companies are also introducing new ways to display products sold on Taobao on Weibo and allow people to place an order directly from Weibo.
Juro Osawa
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