US authorities list Amazon.de as a “notorious market” for counterfeit goods
Allegations against European Amazon sites. (Photo: Primakov / Shutterstock)
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The US trade representative has classified several Amazon sites, including the German one, as “notorious markets” for counterfeit goods. Amazon sees this as an act of revenge by Trump.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR) office has published its 2020 list of “Notorious Counterfeit and Piracy Markets”, updated annually. In addition to websites such as MP3-Juices, The Pirate Bay or Popcorn Time, several European Amazon sites also landed on the list. Specifically, these are amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.es, amazon.fr and amazon.it. The US side is not affected.
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Amazon: high level of counterfeit goods?
Rights holder, is the reason, would have given examples of challenges they would have given the high levels of counterfeit goods on these sites. The seller information displayed by Amazon is often misleading, which makes it difficult to find out from whom one would buy the goods in the first place.
In addition, Amazon does not adequately check the sellers on its platform, according to another allegation made by the USTR office. And for rights holders it is often a lengthy process full of hurdles to get counterfeit products removed from the Amazon site. This applies even if the rights holders are registered with Amazon’s trademark protection program. In the past few years, the complainants complain, the extent of piracy in the aforementioned Amazon markets has intensified.
Amazon denies allegations of fake products
Meanwhile, Amazon has denied the US trade commissioner’s report, referring to the trademark protection programs mentioned above. Amazon, according to a spokesman for the group opposite CNBC, do more to combat counterfeiting than any other company. And further: “The inclusion of Amazon in this report is the continuation of a personal revenge against Amazon and nothing more than a desperate stunt in the last days of this administration”.
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