Internet retail giant Rakuten is terminating sales of whale products through its Japanese marketplace Rakuten Ichiba and has given merchants 30 days to remove them. The move came after EIA launched the report Blood e-Commerce, exposing Rakuten as the world’s biggest online marketplace for ivory and whale meat products
The report “Blood e-Commerce: Rakuten’s profits from the slaughter of elephants and whales” – released by the EIA in conjunction with Humane Society International (HSI) – reveals that the company’s Japanese website carries more than 28,000 ads for elephant ivory products and some 1,200 whale meat products ads
Wildlife advocates expressed bitter disappointment today at the refusal of international conglomerate SoftBank Corp to ban advertisements for elephant ivory and whale & dolphin products on Yahoo! Japan, the dominant company in SoftBank’s internet division with revenues of nearly US$4 billion in 2012
Environmentalists today appealed to internet giant Google to remove thousands of advertisements from its Japanese Shopping site which promote products for sale from endangered whale and elephant species