
Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website - dcminter
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/04/amazon-to-give-power-to-brands-to-delete-fakes-from-website
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CharlesColeman
So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold
unbranded, but are still faker than fake.

IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection
onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to
effectively police _Amazon 's massive inventory_, and some brands might abuse
this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to keep
fakes out off of its platform, and I think they should do the work themselves.

However, cooperative things like their "serialization" feature seem like a
pretty good idea.

~~~
magnetic
> So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually
> sold unbranded.

How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what?

A brand brings this value: expectations.

If I buy a no-brand item, I'm not sure what expectations I can have, and I'm
not sure I can even claim that it's a fake, since I have no reference point as
"the true item".

I mean that's literally the biggest value that a brand brings to you, the
consumer.

That's also why brands work hard to build up and maintain good reputations.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what?

In respect to not being the claimed capacity, but modified in a data-
destroying way to make that difficult to detect:

[https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326059#](https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326059#)
(from 2015, capacities have obviously changed since then):

> Tests by the Counterfeit Report found that the cards will work at first, but
> generally speaking, buyers are purchasing what they think are cards with
> capacities of 32GB and up. Instead they are getting are cards with 7GB
> capacity. Counterfeiters simply overwrite the real memory capacity with a
> false capacity to match any capacity and model they print on the counterfeit
> packaging and card, Crosby explained. Users can’t determine the actual
> memory capacity of a counterfeit memory card by simply plugging it into
> their computer, phone, or camera. When the user hits the limit, the phony
> card starts overwriting files, which leads to lost data.

> The Counterfeit Report often comes across cards in capacities that don’t
> exist in any product line, and the cards it purchases and tests that are
> 32GB and up are usually always fake. The counterfeiters make a great profit
> on the fake cards, and there’s no consequence.

~~~
magnetic
Please see my reply in sibling comment. It addresses this.

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Raphmedia
About time. I've ordered quite a few skincare & haircare products that were
obliviously refilled with random things. Shampoos that smells like pool
cleaner, etc.

I used to always order everything from Amazon. Now I've reached a point where
I avoid it.

What's annoying is that the fakes and the reals have the same listings and
share the same reviews. So you glance at the reviews and see mostly 5 stars...
only to notice that all recent ones are 1 star written by people who received
fakes.

Ex: [https://www.amazon.com/Joico-111772-K-pak-
Conditioner-33-8-o...](https://www.amazon.com/Joico-111772-K-pak-
Conditioner-33-8-ounce/dp/B0018Z4DAE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&th=1)

~~~
glaurung_
Switching products like this seems to be very common on Amazon. I always make
sure and go to all reviews and check the most recent before ordering. Review
Meta is also a great resource for weeding out less trustworthy reviews.

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astrodust
This will help with fraudulent copies of things like books, but what about
utter fraud where they steal content and make fake books?

[https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1091840257073471488](https://twitter.com/billpollock/status/1091840257073471488)

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gvand
But who will remove the other non-brand fakes? Just yesterday i noticed a 1Tb
micro-sd for only $20 instead of the usual $60 for other fake 1Tb cards... I
would have flagged the product. If only Amazon had that function.

All these fake items could destroy Amazon's credibility pretty fast...

~~~
petra
How do you become trusted ?

do a good job(Amazon's brands ), while making the alternatives look bad.

And it's one huge step ahead against their biggest competitor, aliexpress.

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r00fus
Why has it taken so long? Why isn't Amazon doing it themselves? Why have they
not been sued for enabling fake item sales?

~~~
NowThenGoodBad
Probably the same reason mom and dad don’t try to figure out who started it.

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tyingq
Surprised it took this long. I'm curious if the implementation is right, in
both directions. You want to cede enough power to kill counterfeits, but not
enough to kill workalike products, secondary market sellers like those that
buy genuine merchandise from, say, unsold WalMart stock, etc.

~~~
ctvo
You're surprised it took this long, then outline some of the harder issues
that would make it take a long time to implement correctly.

Not only that, but those are policy / design issues. The technical
implementation of this at Amazon scale isn't trivial, then adding in fraud
detection <for this tool> so folks don't abuse it too.

The assumption that Amazon doesn't care about this problem, the fake reviews
problem and others killing their marketplace vs. the problems being difficult
to solve that permeates the comments here gets tiring.

There is no logical reason why they wouldn't care when they try to cultivate
customer satisfaction and loyalty (they're one of the most loved companies in
America) in every other aspect of their business.

~~~
tyingq
Amazon FBA, which made this problem much harder, was launched in 2006. I don't
feel like "took this long" is unreasonable.

~~~
ctvo
And it became an issue immediately or was it only an issue in the last 2-3
years as bad actors found and exploited holes in the system?

~~~
tyingq
It was an issue from the outset. By 2016, Apple was claiming 90% of Apple
chargers on Amazon were fake. If there's truth to that, it was way past being
an "issue" then. I'd consider 5% fakes of a popular product to be a serious
issue.

Edit: I'll concede that it's been a serious PR problem for Amazon only in the
last 3 years. It's been a problem for brands, sellers, and buyers for much
longer, and Amazon has known about it for more than a decade.

~~~
ikeboy
Apple claimed that 90% of the ones they bought were fake. They didn't claim
theirs were statistically representative of the ones on the marketplace.

I've seen plenty of false Apple claims regarding Amazon and I've talked to
people who sued Apple and won. There's also a famous case (search hard 2 find
accessories) that sued Apple and lost because the judge basically said Apple
had immunity under the 1st amendment to make claims even without vetting them.
I think this is wrong but it's tough to go up against Apple in court.

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KwanEsq
I miss when Amazon was just a retailer, not a marketplace (or at least when it
had the marketplace adequately fenced-off from its own retail). It had a lot
more value to me as a consumer then.

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teilo
I suspect some serious first-sale violations will occur with this new system.

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sputknick
Could there be negative unintended consequences here? If someone else sells
your product cheaper than you do on Amazon, could this be used to remove them
and keep prices higher?

~~~
ikeboy
Yes. I've personally received fake complaints of counterfeit from multiple 9
and 10 figure brands. There are active lawsuits (see careful shopper LLC vs
tp-link and Johnson vs incopro which was just settled) for this. Shady law
firms and "brand protection companies" are advising big brands to do this and
it's hurting legitimate sellers. I know sellers with dozens of false
complaints, it's getting out of hand.

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acheron
No reason to link to blogspam. The actual release of information is here:
[https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-
zer...](https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-zero)

~~~
skymt
The Guardian isn't a blog, and this story isn't blogspam. The linked Guardian
story provides a lot of useful context about Amazon's counterfeiting problem
that isn't included in Amazon's marketing post.

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otterwww
This has existed for the better part of 4 years BTW. No idea why it’s suddenly
newsworthy - slow week?

~~~
teilo
No, it hasn't. Anti-counterfeit controls have existed for a while. This is
new, and part of Project Zero, which was only officially announced a week ago.

