China’s Alibaba to Ban Employees from Using Anthropic’s Programming Tool Claude Code
Multiple reports state that Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic’s programming tool Claude Code, effective July 10.
Anthropic already prohibits Chinese companies and foreign entities owned by those companies from utilizing its models.
The company has reportedly been working to close loopholes that allowed Chinese users access to Claude.
A recent Reddit post suggests that Anthropic identified Chinese users through a version of Claude Code that secretly tracked their identities. Thariq Shihipar, Anthropic’s spokesperson, claimed this was an experiment aimed at preventing unauthorized resellers and combating distillation.
Despite the mitigation measures, Alibaba has classified Claude Code as high-risk software and instructed employees to use the company’s own Qoder tool instead.
