Effective monitoring and swift enforcement is the only way in the battle against rogue traders
Counterfeit goods could be costing brand owners $250 billion a year, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). And figures from US Customs and Border Protection show the value of counterfeit goods rising rapidly: by nearly 40 per cent in the US in the last year alone. Brands need to fight back, not just in their own interests, but to protect customers too. Every time a consumer is disappointed when a purchase turns out to be substandard, brand reputation suffers. And online marketplaces haven’t made things any easier.
That’s why new anti-counterfeiting solutions such as CSC Digital Brand Services’ Marketplace Monitoring and Enforcement Service, launched this month, are so necessary. Locating fake goods online isn’t like finding a needle in a haystack. That suggests a single thing hidden in a large but finite space. The Internet isn’t a haystack; it’s a black hole. Counterfeiters and those trading in the gray market are now incredibly sophisticated at exploiting its scale. It takes both a trained eye and cutting-edge technology to stop them.
Expert eyes can spot miniscule errors in faked logos, or the giveaway URLs that others may overlook. Meanwhile, technology can scour the vast volumes of data that can track down fraudulent sellers. After all, successful enforcement of IP rights begins with powerful monitoring. The online marketplace may be massive, but with an effective monitoring and enforcement solution, there is no place to hide.
That said, the bigger the brand, the more complex the search has to be. Brands with multiple product lines operating in many markets need to have eyes everywhere if they are to terminate illegal or unauthorized listings on digital marketplaces and thus reduce the availability of cheap goods that exploit their IP. Naturally every brand has different needs. Some companies may be more prone to counterfeit sales; others to cheap imports through unauthorized channels. So to catch the criminals, they need to fish where the fish are.
The new Marketplace Monitoring and Enforcement Service from CSC Digital Brand Services, in partnership with OpSec Security Inc, reveals the counterfeiters, removes their listings and reports back to brands in a manner that makes it easy to see where the problems are and what’s being done about them.
Digital marketplaces will continue to grow. New channels will continue to emerge. And criminals will continue to find new ways of making illicit gains. Despite this, every honest trader in the brand value chain – the channel, the IP professional, the brand itself, is out to stop them. CSC and OpSec have created a powerful anti-counterfeiting monitoring service that automatically alerts you to threats to the brand, and then swiftly takes appropriate enforcement action. But we know the counterfeiters are determined people. So we continue with after-action monitoring too – because we know that only constant surveillance will do.
For more information:
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