Internet auction site eBay has defended the way in which it handles reports of counterfeit goods, saying that it has delisted millions of items and suspended tens of thousands of seller accounts last year. However, its actions may not be enough to stop a lawsuit brought by a luxury goods retailer, which maintains that eBay needs to do more to stop online auctions of counterfeit products.
Ebay's comments relate to the Tiffany v. eBay lawsuit (PDF), which will soon be heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals. At the heart of the dispute is a disagreement over which party should bear the responsibility for identifying counterfeit products offered in eBay listings.
Tiffany brought the suit against the online auction site. The luxury retailer (and some other companies involved in the case as amici curiae) believe that eBay should be responsible for policing the site. This is a daunting task -- the site has approximately 26 million live listings worldwide at any given time, and sees about 2.7 billion live listings globally over a year.
EBay spokesperson Nicola Sharpe spoke with The Industry Standard about eBay's policies regarding sales of counterfeit items, and the tools the company has put in place to help protect consumers as well as help rights owners protect their brands. The Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) program cited in the decision was instituted in 1998, and gives rights owners tools to find and report instances of counterfeit item listings found on the site.
Sharpe notes that 100 percent of reported listings are removed, with 70 to 80 percent removed within 12 hours. Site policy has zero tolerance for sellers who list counterfeit items, and will also suspend any seller who lists a counterfeit item more than one time. Background information is also used to prevent sellers from creating a new profile and re-listing items. Sharpe reports that 2.1 million listings were removed in 2008 based on VeRO reports, and 30,000 sellers suspended.
As Sharpe, explains, eBay never has physical possession of the items in question, and with the number of listings processed through the site annually, policing counterfeit goods would be impossible. The company's Trust and Safety Department is dedicated to site safety, and includes interaction with law enforcement, and dealing with online fraud as well as issues surrounding counterfeit goods. Sharpe shares eBay's take:
"Collaboration is key. We aren't the experts, obviously, and need to partner with rights owners."
In the past four years, participation in eBay's VeRO Program has increased from approximately 16,000 rights owners to 31,000 currently. Work is currently underway to improve the speed in which reported listings are removed, as well as improve the online tools available to rights owners.
The Internet has provided companies with a global marketplace available 24 hours a day, a boon for sales, but also a detriment to enforcement of product authenticity and trademark ownership. The immediacy of online sales demands a new model for companies to manage rights.
Comments
As Ebay has taken proactive steps to reduce the number of counterfeit goods sold on their site, virtually all those counterfeit sellers have moved their illegal operations over to ioffer.com. Ioffer.com has experienced massive growth in the past 12 months going from roughly 3 million monthly unique visitors to over 9 million monthly visitors and Ioffer's revenues have nearly tripled from a year ago. and virtually all of that growth is from the sales of counterfeit goods. Check it out! Type in keywords like: Louis Vuitton, Coach, Prada, Nike, NFL, MLB, UGG, Abercrombie, Gibson, Windows Vista, Ipod, Wii, soccer jewelry or any other popular luxury good name or popular brand name commodity goods and you'll find many many 1000s of fakes in virtually any listing category you search (everything from electronics, software, footwear, apparel etc).
Counterfeit corruption is so out of control, and the crooks keep capitalizing while the world's economy, legit businesses and consumers are paying a heavy price.
As Ebay has taken proactive steps to reduce the number of counterfeit goods sold on their site, virtually all those counterfeit sellers have moved their illegal operations over to ioffer.com. Ioffer.com has experienced massive growth in the past 12 months going from roughly 3 million monthly unique visitors to over 9 million monthly visitors and Ioffer's revenues have nearly tripled from a year ago. and virtually all of that growth is from the sales of counterfeit goods. Check it out! Type in keywords like: Louis Vuitton, Coach, Prada, Nike, NFL, MLB, UGG, Abercrombie, Gibson, Windows Vista, Ipod, Wii, soccer jewelry or any other popular luxury good name or popular brand name commodity goods and you'll find many many 1000s of fakes in virtually any listing category you search (everything from electronics, software, footwear, apparel etc).
Counterfeit corruption is so out of control, and the crooks keep capitalizing while the world's economy, legit businesses and consumers are paying a heavy price.
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Oh how I wish that were true! As an associate of a very popular commercial artist, Ebay is rampant with counterfeits. We've reported people dozens of times and they're still selling on there. Ebay can claim what they want, but their actions don't back up their policy. I hope the courts nail them to the wall!
Funny how nobody "counterfeits" products of REAL value, like a bag of rice, or vegetables. The things faked are all overpriced, and fairly useless fluff. Who needs designer ANYTHING?? The public knows this, and chooses to procure cheap chattel at its real value, rather than the outrageous prices demanded by the selfish corporations behind most patents and copyrights. Is Windows Vista even worth the fifty dollars the pirates are charging for it? Considering anyone can easily get it for free by ignoring the law and downloading it from numerous filesharing sites, or legally use a much better open source operating system, fifty dollars is really an outrageous price. Copyrights used to be about protecting mortal authors, now they largely protect immortal corporations. Information, as in intellectual properties, is now used as a weapon against the poor, and produces most of its income for the very wealthy. I have NEVER purchased (or needed) commercial software, music, videos, or any designer item, and don't intend to start. I make my income by producing REAL things, not dreams or illusions. If everyone did this, economic bubbles and recessions would not happen. Yes, some wealthy people lose money to pirating, but the public uses pirating to SURVIVE in the face of MASSIVE THEFT and corruption by corporations who own governments, like the lovely mess we have in the USA. If the power mad did not abuse copyrights, perhaps the powerless would stop fighting back. Two wrongs don't make a right, but they do make a huge mess.
2 of the 'counterfeit' items they cancelled were original items of mine - 2 of the 5000 items i HAD on ebarf until they closed me down. after signing a nonsense form and the promise of never selling such items -WHICH WE NEVER HAD AND NEVER WOULD AND ARE MEMBERS OF PRESTIGIOUS TRADE ORGANIZATIONS - and proving my address i was allowed back on.
today i have 900 items on ebarf - i refuse to give them the other 4000 items which i now list in my own store - WHICH THANK GOODNESS I FINALLY OPENED SINCE EBARF DESTROYED MY STORE THERE.
where ebaarf was 90% of my business for 6-7 years they are now 10% and next year 5%.
ebarf is manned by morons and idiots - which is truly unkind to real morons and idiots but without swearing the closest i can come to describing the current management.
good luck to honest sellers on the world's most despicable online company which in itself does not have an honest bone in its corporate body.
2 of the 'counterfeit' items they cancelled were original items of mine - 2 of the 5000 items i HAD on ebarf until they closed me down. after signing a nonsense form and the promise of never selling such items -WHICH WE NEVER HAD AND NEVER WOULD AND ARE MEMBERS OF PRESTIGIOUS TRADE ORGANIZATIONS - and proving my address i was allowed back on.
today i have 900 items on ebarf - i refuse to give them the other 4000 items which i now list in my own store - WHICH THANK GOODNESS I FINALLY OPENED SINCE EBARF DESTROYED MY STORE THERE.
where ebaarf was 90% of my business for 6-7 years they are now 10% and next year 5%.
ebarf is manned by morons and idiots - which is truly unkind to real morons and idiots but without swearing the closest i can come to describing the current management.
good luck to honest sellers on the world's most despicable online company which in itself does not have an honest bone in its corporate body.
What's really silly is that *I* have tried listing GENUINE Tiffany and other designers, and Ebay won't allow me because they can't prove they're NOT fake. Ebay has WAY over-reacted, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of these supposed "counterfeit" items are genuine.
And here is how Ebay REALLY handles a report of counterfeit items:
I filed a dispute after receiving (and reporting) fake HP ink cartridges. The cartridges shipped directly from China, not the seller's stated shipping address in Florida (which immed made me very suspicious), and upon closer examination they proved to be older, used and refilled cartridges, not the new, genuine HP cartridges they described. There were several things that gave this away and reasons were described IN DETAIL in my Ebay complaint. (date on box said 2011 while magnifiying glass showed date stamped on the cart was 2005, cartridge rattled indicating it had been drilled and refilled, cheap sticker over the drill hole, HP outer box colors leaching onto each other in transit, etc, etc)
So what does Ebay/PayPal tell me to do? They instruct me that, in order to receive my $285 back from the seller (who may or may not be in on the scam), I must RETURN them AS IS to the seller!!!
Yeah, way to go, Ebay, that's really policing the site and protecting consumers, now isn't it? Seller can simply turn around and resell them either on your site (because he's NOT suspended) or on another site, to someone else, who may not be as knowledgable about these. Way to go, Ebay. You're a joke. You're not doing ANYTHING to protect consumers and you deserve to LOSE this lawsuit. Period.
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