Current monitoring fails – platforms need to actively cooperate with competitors
Dr. David Shepherd, et al, 2023 – Senior Lecturer, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom. “PRACTICES USED BY ONLINE MARKETPLACES TO TACKLE THE TRADE IN COUNTERFEITS” World Intellectual Property Organization Advisory Committee on Enforcement, 11/24,
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59. A further challenge all the marketplaces face is discriminating between genuine and counterfeit listings. The naïve merchants are easier to spot because they do not attempt to disguise the illicit nature of their offerings. Sophisticated traders have developed techniques to avoid detection (Participant C). These techniques include copying brands’ original advertising images, blurring brands’ images, corrupting brand names and trademarks, and using hidden links within apparently benign content to direct knowing buyers to counterfeits.
60. Using Google’s image search facility, we readily found examples of corrupted and blurred copies of brands’ genuine product images and trademarks on both source and destination marketplaces (Figure 1). We also found obvious fakes on destination marketplaces, which originated from suppliers on source marketplaces, that offer brand customization to dropshippers “… with badges and logo embellishment, make the whole bag appear senior elegant, full of temperament”. In these cases, the naïve merchants on the destination marketplaces did not disguise the illicit use of the trademarks, but the sophisticated suppliers on the source marketplaces did. These findings suggest that marketplaces ought to expand their monitoring beyond their platforms (see Figure 1) or develop closer cooperation with competitors with efficient marketplace-to-marketplace reporting channels.