(JU HUANZONG)

Ma Yun, Chairman and President of Alibaba Group, parent company of China's top business-to-consumer online retail platform Taobao Mall, has recently come under fire as small vendors in the Taobao Mall deliberately disrupted its operations to protest abrupt fee hikes that the mall claimed to charge.

Ma founded Alibaba.com in 1999, and it is now one of the biggest business-to-business online selling websites in the world. Its primary intention is helping more companies with their businesses and it is now a Hong Konglisted company.

The Alibaba Group consists of top business-to-business site Alibaba.com, business-to-consumer site Taobao Mall and consumer-to-consumer site Taobao marketplace. Alibaba Group and its affiliated entities now have more than 22,000 employees across some 70 cities and regions in the world.