Taobao.com will spend 100 million yuan in fighting against counterfeit products to make e-commerce safer, according to a report by the National Business Daily.

The capital will be allocated in two purposes. One is to make compensations to customers. The other is to build a professional counterfeiting team, made up of 100 people.

As of now, Taobao.com has cleared nearly 2 million fake brand products and closed almost 10 thousand online stores wrapped up in selling fake products.

The e-commerce platform Taobao.com appealed its 145m users to actively participate the event.

Informed sources say it is paving the way for its planned initial public offering of early 2010.

Taobao is a online shopping marketplace for consumers in China. Founded by parent Alibaba Group, it facilitates transactions between individual consumers and a wide range of sellers such as retailers, wholesalers, and other individuals. Sellers are able to post new and used goods for sale on the Taobao marketplace either through a fixed price or negotiated sale or by auction.

Established in 2003, Taobao.com is China's largest online auction site, taking up about three-fourth of the market share, according to domestic research firm iResearch.

By Xie Fang