Alibaba Group strikes against MLP toysellers

[Violet CLM]

Or, based on this blog post, that's my best guess. Sometime in the last few days, AliExpress seems to have been all but completely stripped of listings for MLP toys, fakies or otherwise. Every item on my wish list has been deleted, and pawing through search results reveals numerous backpacks, bags, umbrellas, phone cases, ribbons, pillowcases,  occasional plushies, and so on, all of varying degrees of legitimacy... but almost no plastic toys. Essentially the only extant toy listings are a) ones newly listed following the purge or b) ones that don't include the phrase "my little pony" in the title.

I haven't noticed any similar purge at Alibaba, but then I don't browse it nearly so frequently, since its selection was always pretty limited anyway. There might be listings missing I'm just not remembering.

That's all. I'm saddened and thought I'd mention it.

[SilverHorsey]

Even G3s are gone? I just wanted to buy some :c

[Wardah]

Does the purge include Monster High and BJDs?

[Violet CLM]

Wardah: I don't know what a BJD is, but it looks like there are plenty of Monster High dolls still on the site. The only other line I've ever searched for there (Tinkerbell) is also still in abundance. It seems to have been aimed at MLP very specifically.

[hathorcat]

They do this a lot so I would not worry too much. They will get a complaint/series of complaints or a product name will become too high profile/too prevalent on the site and as a consequence wipe everything with the description/title in a certain category. In a few months the same products will pop up again, normally from different sellers. Technically due to their trading base they dont have to do much about western company complaints. However as sites they do actually try to react (or make an effort to react) to copyright issues - mainly because they want a good reputation with western buyers.

The three strikes policy is one I have never heard of before but as most of these factories listing items have numerous accounts and its not that hard to set up new ones, I dont think it will hurt them too much.

The sites and their core purpose - i.e. putting western businesses in touch with eastern based factories - are simply too vast to be completely managed.