Counterfeit and pirated products they are not new. They have been sold on street corners or from car trunks for years. In some countries this is still the case. It has never been too difficult for consumers to identify “fake” products. Price, quality and, of course, the place of sale have always been all too clear clues. Like many other aspects of our lives, however, the trade in counterfeit goods has gone from analogue to digital. In the online world, distinguishing what is true from what is false can be much more difficult for consumers. Counterfeiters can operate very effectively online by stealing a company’s design and branding and even mixing their counterfeit products with online reviews of the brand’s original products. Product images used by scammers are sometimes the real photos of the owners of the brand, and it is increasingly difficult for the customer to understand what is true and what is false. When they buy a counterfeit product, consumers are left with a faulty product that doesn’t work properly, breaks down quickly, or doesn’t meet their expectations. They often end up blaming the actual company, thereby damaging the reputation of the brand.
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21 October 2021
This week Amazon released its second Amazon Brand Protection Report, sharing its progress in the fight against safeguarding sellers and customers from counterfeit goods, fraud and other forms of abuse. In 2021 alone, Amazon invested over $ 900 million and engaged more than 12,000 people in the fight against fakes. The company’s initiatives have blocked more than 2.5 million attempts to create new sales accounts, preventing attackers from putting sale of counterfeit products. As in real life, where the removal of a street corner vendor does not prevent him from finding a new location, the fight against online counterfeiting needs to be more complex. Collaboration between online sellers and between the public and private sectors is imperative. Amazon has created a plan to maximize the impact of its initiative. This includes the importance of private sector information exchange to stop counterfeiters between retailers, partnering with customers to secure borders, and increasing resources for partnering with law enforcement and institutions to prosecute counterfeiters.
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01 November 2021
“We believe there is no competition in a world of counterfeit products,” said Mary Beth Westmoreland, Amazon’s vice president of trademark protection. “We have tried to build our program so that it is not specific to Amazon. Intellectual Property Accelerator helps brands gain protection from them defend everywhere, not just on Amazon. The Counterfeiting Crimes Unit identifies and seizes counterfeits to prevent them from being re-entered into the supply chain. Whether or not a brand is sold on Amazon, it can still share intellectual property information with us, share product information with us, and send notifications of potential infringements. “
Amazon’s job to make sure customers can trust their experience of purchase focuses on proactive techniques to protect the store, on tools to better protect brands and on the prosecution of criminals, so that the entire sector can see a substantial decrease in the marketing of counterfeit products. For this reason, in 2020 Amazon created the Amazon Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU), a team of former federal prosecutors and FBI agents experienced investigators and data analysts.
Technology
The process begins with a solid procedure selection of sellers which includes an in-person verification program, which requires prospective sellers to have one-on-one interviews with Amazon team members to verify their identity and records. This verification is further strengthened by proof of the seller’s physical location and payment instruments. Machine learning models are then used to detect risk levels using hundreds of data on the potential vendor, such as proposed payment methods, company location, previous activities and even relationships with previously uncovered criminals.
The technology is also used to constantly monitor Amazon.com for potential breaches. Amazon’s automated system scans more than 8 billion attempts to edit product detail pages every day for signs of possible abuse. In 2021, Amazon blocked more than 4 billion potentially abusive adverts before they were placed on the online store. These were advertisements suspected of being fraudulent, counterfeit, at risk of other forms of abuse or with significant product quality problems.
However, the fight against sellers of counterfeit products is only one side of the coin. The other is to ensure the protection of brands and their intellectual property (IP). Once again, machine learning comes to the rescue, with automated protections continually scanning Amazon stores for potentially infringing products under the Brand Registry initiative.
In 2021, the Brand Registry saw a 40% increase over the previous year, with over 700,000 brands enrolled in the program. Improvements in automatic protections have resulted in fewer infringing products in the Amazon store. As a result, the average number of valid infringement notifications submitted by a trademark in the Trademark Register decreased by 25% compared to 2020.
Education
However, all these efforts would be somewhat in vain if consumers are not educated to buy with confidence and intentionally avoid counterfeits. A 2019 study by the International Trademark Association showed that while Generation Z young people have a strong respect for the value of others’ ideas and creations and 74% believe it is important to buy authentic products, 57% also believe that their own money is better spent if it ends up in the pockets of a local counterfeit vendor rather than in the coffers of a large company. This thought is related to a somewhat romantic idea of people who are dedicated to selling fake products. Most of the time, these individuals are part of organizations that exploit workers and engage in other illegal activities. However, the same study showed that 91% of young people of Gen Z he expressed his willingness to change his views based on what he learned, pointing out that education is a fundamental part of how counterfeiting can be defeated in the long run.
We often believe that technology can solve all our problems, even those that, in some way, it has helped to create. Reality, however, shows that while technologies like machine learning can help, behavior at the root of every problem needs to be changed. In this case, it’s about educating consumers about the hidden costs of buying fake products.