Amazon has previously said it would escalate its war on counterfeit merchandise this year, but now the online retail giant is providing more details on how it plans to accomplish that feat. [More]
alibaba
Alibaba Says Companies Are Filing Fake Claims About Counterfeit Products
By 2.9.17
Five months ago, designer brands complained that Alibaba wasn’t doing enough to rid its site of counterfeiters. Now, the e-commerce megasite claims that it’s being victimized by fakes — not bogus products, but allegedly false complaints about vendors selling counterfeit products. [More]
eBay Using Pro Authenticators To Spot Counterfeit Items
By 1.12.17
Even though eBay is really just a middle-man, giving buyers and sellers a platform to transact business, it doesn’t want those buyers being conned into paying for counterfeit items, or sellers unloading potentially illegal knockoffs. [More]
Alibaba’s Taobao.com Back On U.S. Government’s Counterfeiting Naughty List
By 12.22.16
Four years ago, e-commerce giant Alibaba managed to get one of its sites, Taobao, removed from the United States Trade Representative’s list of “notorious markets” around the world that are known for counterfeit or pirated products. Just as Alibaba is trying to be accepted as a respectable global brand, the USTR has put the site back on the list. [More]
Designer Brands Complain That Alibaba Isn’t Doing Enough To Ditch Counterfeits
By 9.1.16
Are Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms a wretched hive of fakes and counterfeits, or has the company really made progress in eradicating counterfeiters from its sites? As the U.S. Trade Representative makes a list of which places on the internet tend to sell fakes, that’s an important question: is Alibaba really doing all that it can to root out knockoffs? [More]
Alibaba Wants To Help Tech Companies Break Into The Chinese Market
By 8.9.16
Whenever you start a new job or transfer to a new school, there’s always that guy that really wants to help show you the ropes and let you in on the local scuttlebutt. When it comes to the expanding frontier that is the Chinese tech market, e-commerce giant Alibaba wants to be “that guy.” [More]
Racketeering Charges In Luxury Brands’ Lawsuit Against Alibaba Dismissed
By 8.5.16
While a lawsuit filed against e-commerce platform Alibaba and 14 of its sellers by French luxury goods maker Kering continues, a federal judge has dismissed part of it. The judge has ruled that the parent company of Balenciaga, Gucci, Puma, and Saint Laurent failed to prove that Alibaba and its vendors worked together in an enterprise to sell knockoff designer goods at at super cheap prices. However, the allegations that the site allowed knockoff items to proliferate remain. [More]
Verizon Will Spend $4.8 Billion To Acquire Yahoo
By 7.24.16
Yahoo — home to all those email addresses you use for subscriptions you’d rather not have anyone else know about, and the Flickr account you probably haven’t updated since 2010 — will soon be under the same umbrella as former web 1.0 rival AOL, with Verizon agreeing to acquire the ancient online operation for $4.8 billion. [More]
10 Chinese Companies You Should Probably Know About
By 6.27.16
Many of the most common household brand names in America are not American companies, and that’s been true for decades. When it comes to technological innovation especially — from cars to phones and every appliance in between — we’ve become used to huge numbers of goods coming from countries in Asia. [More]
Alibaba Founder Jack Ma: No, I Didn’t Mean That Counterfeit Goods Are Better Than Originals
By 6.23.16
Remarks to investors in China by Alibaba Group founder and CEO Jack Ma about the improving quality of counterfeit and knockoff goods must not have gone over well with the foreign name brands that the company hopes to attract to sell on its platforms. Ma sent an op-ed to the Wall Street Journal explaining that he didn’t actually mean that counterfeit goods are better. [More]
Alibaba Founder Says Chinese Knockoffs Now Better Than The Brands They Impersonate
By 6.14.16
Chinese online retail giant Alibaba Group seems to want to have it both ways with low-cost knockoff products — simultaneously offering a popular portal for sellers of these lookalike items to reach the world and claiming to be actively cracking down on the sale of these same products. The company’s founder now says one the reasons it can’t just shut off this pipeline of too-similar brand-name apparel and tech products is that these China-made items are now just as good or better than the more expensive products they imitate. [More]
SEC Opens Investigation Into Alibaba
By 5.25.16
Federal regulators have opened a probe into Chinese e-commerce biggie Alibaba’s accounting practices. [More]
Alibaba And Fitbit Hold A ‘Super Brand Day’ Exercise Party To Celebrate New Fitbits
By 5.18.16
Alibaba and famous brand names do not historically have a great relationship. Just earlier this week, the e-commerce company was suspended from an international anti-counterfeiting coalition and its CEO withdrew as keynote speaker at the group’s conference later this month. The company is trying, though, and today had a Super Brand Day on the company’s Tmall e-commerce site. [More]
Alibaba Joins Industry Anti-Counterfeiting Group, Gets Suspended
By 5.16.16
The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition is exactly what it sounds like: a coalition of frequently-counterfeited brands, law firms, investigators, and marketplaces working together to root out counterfeit goods. However, big brand names like Tiffany and Gucci America quit the coalition in protest after the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba was allowed to join. The brands were concerned that the IACC had allowed in the exact kind of company they were fighting. [More]
U.S. Marshals Raid CES Booth To Seize Alleged Knockoff Scooters
By 1.8.16
We’ve seen lots of odd things at CES International over the years — live kangaroos, stormtroopers, boxing matches, Seth Rogen — but one thing we’ve never seen before is U.S. marshals seizing knockoff products for alleged patent infringement. [More]
Taylor Swift Fighting Counterfeit Products By Partnering With Chinese Companies To Sell $60 Branded T-Shirts
By 7.22.15
One of the most common reasons someone might be tempted to purchase counterfeit product is price — fakes are likely to be much cheaper than the real thing, hence the appeal. So the choice by popular musician Taylor Swift to fight back against counterfeits by selling $60 T-shirts is well, a bit of a head scratcher. [More]
Alibaba Will Expedite Counterfeit Takedowns For Some Name Brands
By 6.2.15
In the months since Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba began trading shares in its Cayman Islands-based holding corporation on the New York Stock Exchange, entities ranging from the Chinese government to the owner of Gucci have accused the company of knowingly profiting from counterfeit branded goods. Alibaba has promised to improve its capacity to ferret out fakes, and now says that it will take down some brands’ items more quickly. [More]
Company Behind Gucci, Other Luxury Brands Suing Alibaba Over Claims Of Counterfeit Goods
By 5.18.15
Fighting the rising tide of counterfeit goods is a constant battle for luxury brands, and a big priority if they want to stay in business. That’s why a French company behind luxury brands like Gucci, Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and sportswear names like Puma is suing Chinese online marketplace Alibaba, claiming it’s making it easy for customers to buy counterfeit goods in bulk through its websites. [More]
