China Ecommerce Giant Unveils Apps to Track “Green” Social Credit Scores to Monitor All Aspects of Your Life at World Economic Forum

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier today, Alibaba Holdings President J. Michael Evans unveiled their plans to launch an app that could track an individual user's "carbon footprint." "We’re developing, through technology, an ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint. What does that mean? That’s where are they travelling, how are they travelling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on our platform. So: An individual carbon footprint tracker." As Kit Knightly reports at Off-Guardian, this is HUGE news as Alibaba is the second largest ecommerce company in the world, second only to Amazon.com, with revenues in excess of 715 billion Yuan in 2021 (that’s over 110 billion USD). And they’re not just an e-commerce platform. Through their financial and technological service companies, Alibaba runs the largest domain name market, email provider and cloud storage services in China, and the largest payment platform in the world. Through Alihealth they supply online pharmacy services, as well as providing computer technology to hospitals and clinics. Since they bought AutoNavi in 2014, they own the biggest e-map navigation company in China too. Essentially, in China if you want to pay for something on the internet, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to order something online from a small business, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to sell your stuff second hand, you probably use Alibaba. If you want to register a domain, go to a pharmacy, check into a hospital, send an email, use a map or GPS…you get the idea. How long before Alibaba decides to “reward” other “correct choices” that have nothing to do with the environment? Like vaccination, for example. How long after that do they start punishing incorrect choices? They already technically have access to the data they would need to construct this system. It would be naïve in the extreme to not see where this leads. And, of course, it won’t just be China. If Alibaba is doing this then Google, Amazon, Apple and all the rest of them won’t be far behind.