ALIBABA Group, which is 40 percent owned by Yahoo Inc, has petitioned the United States Trade Representative Office over the inclusion of Taobao, its consumer e-commerce platform, on a list of notorious markets for piracy, an Alibaba Group spokesman said yesterday.

Taobao made it on the USTR's November list for offering a wide range of copyright-infringing products.

Alibaba wrote a letter last week to the USTR to petition its case that Taobao should not be on the list given the platform's efforts in working with intellectual property rights holders to combat piracy.

The USTR removed Baidu Inc from the November list, it said in December.

"Taobao continues to make significant strides in the protection of intellectual property rights ... Taobao does not believe that the USTR should continue to designate Taobao as a notorious market," Alibaba Group's spokesman John Spelich wrote in the letter.

China's Ministry of Commerce also said last month that it was concerned and opposed to the listing of Taobao as a notorious market for piracy.

China has the most number of Internet users in the world and its e-commerce sector is booming.