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Alibaba Bans Claude AI Tools After Hidden Detection Found

Alibaba has issued an internal directive banning all employees from using Anthropic's Claude series of AI tools, including popular models like Sonnet, Opus, and Fable, as well as the Claude Code agent. The deadline for compliance is July 10.

Earlier this year, Alibaba had embraced AI tools to accelerate its digital transformation. The company provided free quotas for its own models and offered generous reimbursement for external ones. Employees quickly increased their reliance on top-tier models like Claude and GPT, with some programmers consuming hundreds of dollars in call quotas per week. But as concerns over AI computing power and data security grew, the company has now reversed course.

The ban stems from a hidden detection mechanism discovered in Claude Code. Developer community analysis revealed that since April, the tool included code that monitored users' device time zones and accessed domain lists. If it detected users in the China time zone or interactions with domestic tech companies' domains—including Alibaba—the system would automatically report the activity. This practice violated Alibaba's internal R&D security policies.

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Anthropic responded by stating that the mechanism was an "experimental" measure launched in March to prevent account abuse and model distillation attacks. The company said the relevant code was completely rolled back and deleted in the latest version released on July 2.

Key Points

  • Alibaba bans all Claude AI tools internally, effective July 10.
  • Hidden detection in Claude Code monitored time zones and domains, triggering alerts for China-based users.
  • Anthropic says the feature was experimental and has been removed.