Dear Action Team member,

Please help us keep the world's biggest e-commerce portal free from listings of bear bile, the fur and meat of dogs and cats, and sharks' fin.

Alibaba Limited has agreed to ban traders from listing bear bile and dog-and-cat products on its Alibaba.com website, which has over 47 million users. The company banned listings of sharks' fin last year.

Animals Asia approached Alibaba last year requesting a ban on the sale of fur and meat products made from dogs and cats. We were delighted when the online portal not only made the decision to ban subscribers from listing fur and meat of cats and dogs, but extended the ban to include bear bile products.

The ban applies to users of Alibaba.com and its separate sister operation, Taobao.com (a Chinese-language consumer e-commerce site that operates almost exclusively within China). However, because users of the website are able to post listings independently, the staff of Alibaba will need to be vigilant for new listings. We are asking our university student support groups throughout China to help monitor the Chinese-language site.

Animals Asia is aware of the immense task monitoring such a site presents to the online portal’s staff and we are therefore asking you to be the eyes and ears of Alibaba.com. See here for more on this exciting initiative. .

The company's decision to put ethics before profit is truly inspirational and we believe many, many animals will be spared a cruel and brutal fate because the people at Alibaba cared enough to act.

So please visit www.alibaba.com and keep returning to the site to ensure that no listings are placed advertising the sale of dog and cat fur, the meat of dogs and cats, sharks' fin or bear bile products. If you find any of these items, please email details to Linda Kozlowski at Alibaba.com [email protected].