Alibaba Bans Claude Code Over Alleged Spyware Targeting Chinese Users

Alibaba has told employees to stop using Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding tool, with the ban taking effect July 10. Reuters and The Information reported the move citing people with direct knowledge of the decision. Alibaba joins Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase on this year's growing list of companies pulling back from Claude, though for a very different reason. Alibaba and Anthropic have not publicly stated anything regarding this matter.

A separate report from Pandaily, citing people close to the matter, says the ban goes further than Claude Code. Alibaba has reportedly told staff to remove Anthropic's Sonnet, Opus, and Fable models too, and switch to Qoder, its own coding tool. Until recently, Alibaba reimbursed staff for outside AI tools, and some engineers reportedly spent hundreds of dollars a week on Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex. 

The reason behind this move from Alibaba, according to the same report, is security. Claude Code reportedly has a hidden feature, discovered in June, that has been widely described as spyware. The feature checks a user's location and flags anyone connected to China. That claim has been disputed by an Anthropic engineer, who argues it's actually an anti-fraud measure. The ban comes one week after Anthropic accused Alibaba, in a letter to U.S. senators dated June 10, of stealing Claude's abilities.

Is Claude Code Actually Spyware? What the Hidden Code Really Does