The massive protest against Taobao Mall, one of China's biggest e-retailer platforms, has finally ceased after Taobao offered five concessions following the intervention of the Ministry of Commerce.

Before this temporary ending, nearly 50,000 owners of small businesses who retail through Taobao reportedly gathered online to organize protests after Taobao Mall massively hiked fees for retailers.  They planned to purchase huge numbers of the same commodities from certain large online retailers, then cancel the orders and give bad evaluations of the service, forcing the shops to take many products offline.

After the Ministry of Commerce stepped in the name of stabilizing prices and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, Taobao adjusted its regulations and postponed the start point of the new fees to September 30, 2012. All shops will enjoy 50 percent off their security deposits in 2012, and Alibaba, Taobao's parent company, put 1 billion yuan ($156 million) into an assurance fund for consumers. Taobao will also provide loan guarantees for small retailers who borrow from the third-party financial institutions.

The Taobao Mall protest has shocked the Internet society and stirred vast disputes in China. For Taobao, raising the charges was done to "take measures against fake goods and those sold via abnormal channels," and to promote the quality of goods and services through the market."

And as a private enterprise, Taobao has the right to set its price for providing services. It claimed at the beginning of the protest that most protesters were not real sellers but professional bad-review-posters and hype merchants. But for the protesters, the tenfold rise in Taobao's charge cut off their lifeline, and they accused Taobao of damaging small businesses for its own ends.

Usually, I would support the right of a private business to raise its prices. Although Ma Yun, Taobao's chief, has made a big deal in the past about the company's social responsibility, he can shirk it if he wants.

And in moving from being free to charging fees, Taobao has followed a usual pattern for e-business platforms, ranging from business-to-customer (B2C) platforms in China like 360buy.com and Vancle to overseas companies like E-bay. Fighting against fraud and protecting consumers' rights is expensive, and charging fees falls in line with the general pattern of the industry.

However, Taobao is not a traditional private enterprise, as it is also an online B2C platform and has huge circle of web retailers. It holds something close to a monopoly in China.
 
In short, Taobao is also an online society, in which Taobao, although an enterprise, has taken on something of the functions of a government. Raising charges is like the government imposing higher tax. No matter how good the reasons are, a "government" should not make the decision on its own, but should negotiate with the other parties and find a compromise. So, it is understandable that Taobao's sudden "tax" caused massive protest.

Taobao's Web society doesn't belong exclusively to Ma Yun or Alibaba, but to everyone involved. It's built up its own records and sense of social credit. These records are important to the Taobao retailers, and so they can't simply move their businesses elsewhere. So, when facing injustice from above, they have to turn to "violent protests."

In an online world where social networks are increasingly important, the Taobao Mall protest will not be the last we see. Many other online networks, such as QQ, Kaixin.com, and Weibo, have become their own societies. Some operators change the regulations because they think they have the last word and can dominate the societies they created, but these societies have become living organisms, not just businesses, and have a huge ability to resist.

For other online enterprises in China, the Taobao Mall project should be a warning bell.

The author is an IT industry commentator based in Beijing. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn