Info-sharing fails - empircally

U.S. footwear companies are involved in various programs and activities internationally to address shortfalls in this area: awareness campaigns; domain name seizures; collaboration on investigations and actions against vendors active on social media, through websites, or selling platforms; and participation in the Memorandum of Understanding lead by the European Commission, which aims to facilitate collaboration between brands and several major selling platforms.

While these actions are important in helping to combat online sales of counterfeits, their impact has been limited for a number of reasons: platforms do not willingly and fully share the information they have regarding counterfeiters, law enforcement agencies have difficulties prioritizing the targets for which their action would have the biggest disruptive impact, brands do not have the capacity to easily identify targets or the most visible and active counterfeiters, and it remains very difficult for brands to identify counterfeits offered online without assistance from the platforms that have background information regarding their vendors (brands do not have access to this information). Some FDRA companies have also been unable to effectively engage with foreign countries, because they have been unable to locate the originating source of the counterfeit product.