For the first time, the Internet giant Amazon is showcasing its measures to fight counterfeiting in a dedicated brand protection report. The Amazon Brand Protection Report, published beginning of May, summarizes the results of 2020’s activities. With investments of around 700 million US-Dollars, the company says they have made important progress in fighting fraudulent offers on its platforms. “Our Brand Protection Report is the first report in which we provide a holistic view of our anti-counterfeiting efforts, and I’m proud to share the progress our teams have made as we continue to drive to zero counterfeits“, said Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President, Customer Trust and Partner Support.
More than 2 million counterfeits sent to Amazon’s logistics centers under the company’s program Fulfillment by Amazon have been taken out of circulation, according to the report. If counterfeits turned up at a fulfillment center, the inventories have been separated and the intercepted goods destroyed, to prevent them from re-entering supply chains elsewhere.
The verification process for sellers has also been optimized to increase security, the report says. Since 2020, for example, prospective sellers have to verify themselves by means of live video or via shipments to their physical address. Last year, more than 6 million attempts to create a selling account were denied even before sellers could post their first listings online – a significant increase from about 2.5 million denied registrations in 2019. Overall, only about 6 percent of requests were approved, the company says. It also says it blocked more than 10 billion listings in 2020 before they were published and reviewed about 5 billion attempted changes to product detail pages, to identify illegitimate listings.
Amazon also highlights its programs to liaise with companies and to help them protect their goods from counterfeiting. This includes Amazon’s initiatives Brand Registry, Transparency, and Project Zero. For example, more than 500,000 brands are reported to have joined Amazon’s Brand Registry program, which provides access to IP protection tools. Amazon Transparency’s serialization of products is said to have protected more than 500 million items in 2020.
Amazon has repeatedly come under scrutiny for the prevalence of counterfeits on its online marketplaces – earlier this year, for example, European Amazon sites were included on the U.S. government’s Notorious Markets black list. Previously, accusations by former Amazon employees garnered attention claiming that anti-counterfeiting was not a priority for Amazon. Back then, Amazon was accused of rather neglecting the fight against counterfeiting so as not to suffer any losses, according to allegations in US media at the time.
