The biggest takeaway that Amazon wants brands and consumers to understand about its anti-counterfeiting measures is that its approach is working — and not just incrementally. According to the e-tail giant’s latest brand protection report released on Tuesday, its copycat-busting moves have led to the removal of 6 million fakes from circulating to its marketplace and other stores, while it stopped hundreds of thousands of illicit accounts from opening on its platform.
Amazon’s tactical approach to combatting counterfeits has been years in the making, as a blend of brand and consumer reporting, seller vetting, mandated removals and legal enforcement actions. But the tech giant’s expertise in artificial intelligence appears to be amping up the efficacy, perhaps to such a degree that it may even discourage malevolent parties from even trying.
“The number of bad actor attempts to create new selling accounts decreased from 6 million attempts in 2020 to 2.5 million attempts in 2021, to 800,000 in 2022,” the report revealed.
What’s particularly impressive is that the number of products pulsing through the marketplace is continuing to grow while the number of infringement notices last year dropped by more than 35 percent over 2021, Anna Dalla Val, Amazon’s director of global brand relations, told WWD.
Like data science and automation applied in other aspects of business, AI has the ability to scale efficiencies and create dramatic results in the fight against fakes.
“Machine-learning technologies really is our first layer of defense to detect counterfeit goods and also the bad actors trying to sell them,” Dalla Val said. “It continues to improve based on information that brands share with us. It learns to identify trademarks, logos and patterns.”
Amazon’s strategy is to push the work up front in a preventive way, she explained, instead of the “whack-a-mole” situation that describes most anti-counterfeiting measures. “We scan the store constantly,” she added. “We scan 8 billion attempted changes to update the listings every day, before they go live to our customers — you know, before anybody even sees them.”
Naturally, the effort fits neatly into the AI trend that has been dominating the news cycle lately. That’s all well and good, but Dalla Val also pointed out that bad actors also have access to those tools as well. That’s why staying a step ahead of them matters.
She emphasized that one crucial way Amazon does that is to rely on its brand relationships and communication with partners, as well as authorities like U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
“[Our blueprint] focuses on making sure that there is not just action, but an exchange of information about counterfeit activity at different points within the process,” she continued. “I think [there’s] a lot of great data, and how we exchange that data, in what time, is going to become what matters.”
She explained that the CBP provides information to Amazon, so it can try to stop counterfeit goods destined for its fulfillment network before they arrive. That’s not just in the U.S. — the company also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan’s customs authority.
In other words, fighting counterfeits relies as much on partners and cooperation as the tech, and that’s not going to change. If bad actors do make it through, then Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit won’t pull any legal punches. Last year, the division sued or referred for investigation more than 1,300 criminals across the U.S., the U.K., European Union and China.
These are notable talking points, as Amazon tries to court more fashion designers. Numerous luxury brands have been reluctant to join the platform due to concerns about counterfeit products.
One case in Europe brought by Christian Louboutin, for instance, argued that the e-commerce company should be responsible, as it showed sponsored listings or ads touting knockoff shoes in the marketplace. Multibrand e-commerce sites often end up taking a hands-off approach to such scenarios, similar to the way social media platforms argue that they aren’t responsible for content pushed out by their users. But on both fronts, that may be poised to change, as legislators take a harder view. In the Louboutin case, a preliminary ruling in December agreed with the plaintiff.
Notably, Amazon’s latest report follows just a few months later, so it benefits from touting the numbers, as well as rallying a united, group effort to battle fake goods in general.
For Dalla Val and the Counterfeit Crimes Unit, the industry still has a long way to go, she said, and eliminating bad practices one site doesn’t go far enough.
“The scope here is not just to deter and fight counterfeit on Amazon, but going up the supply chain, so that these products don’t come back and aren’t sold somewhere else.”