Amazon has announced a new initiative to push criminals out of digital retail, one that gives participating stores, not limited to stores on the Amazon marketplace, the ability to share information about confirmed counterfeiters who attempted to use the stores’ services to sell counterfeit products.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange is an industry collaboration designed to make it safer to shop online and more difficult for counterfeiters to move among different online platforms and stores to try selling counterfeit goods.
By sharing information about counterfeiters, ACX participants can identify and stop perpetrators more quickly than they would without collaborative data sharing. In accordance with industry standards and best practices, an independent third party provides anonymized access for participants who can then share and receive information.
ACX enables regular information sharing and participants can use in their ongoing efforts to detect and address counterfeiting, improve their individual risk evaluation systems and make more robust referrals to law enforcement, Amazon stated. In bringing ACX into operation, Amazon already has detected hundreds of matching accounts where the same counterfeiter tried to sell on its own platform and that of at least one other store operator. Identifying and sharing counterfeiter accounts through the exchange provides other stores participating in ACX with the information they need more quickly to shut down bad actors. In confronting criminal activity, each participant makes independent decisions about whether and how to use the information in ACX, Amazon noted.
Amazon has been working with other organizations as it has piloted ACX to establish appropriate guardrails and design a scalable way to broaden participation to additional companies interested in stopping counterfeiters. Private sector partnerships around data sharing are crucial to combating counterfeiting, Amazon asserted, adding that it invites other retailers and marketplace service providers to join the ACX and collaborate to further strengthen the industry’s collective efforts against counterfeiters.
“We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon vice president of Selling Partner Services. “As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnerships to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industrywide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry’s collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing consumers and rights owners with greater peace of mind.”
James Mancuso, director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, added, “The IPR Center applauds the foundational efforts made by the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange, and we’re pleased to have been a part of its creation. This is an opening salvo in a much larger battle against counterfeiters and criminal organizations, and the effort will need even greater participation, from all industries and sectors, to reach its full potential. We look forward to supporting this momentous effort with all of the tools that the IPR Center brings to bear.”
