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eBay Describes the Scale of Its Counterfeit Goods Problem
Ian Lamont writes "As the Tiffany vs. eBay lawsuit winds its way through a federal appeals court, eBay has trotted out some numbers that show how many sellers attempt to sell fake goods on the auction site. Millions of auctions were delisted last year, and tens of thousands of accounts were suspended after reports were made to eBay's Verified Rights Owner program, which lets trademark owners notify eBay of fake goods being sold on the site. eBay says 100% of reported listings were removed from the site last year, most within 12 hours, and the company uses sellers' background information to make sure that they don't create new accounts to sell delisted items. Tiffany brought the suit against eBay in 2004, alleging that eBay was turning a blind eye to counterfeit luxury goods and demanding that eBay police its listings for bogus goods. Tiffany lost the case last July and will shortly present its arguments to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York. A similar case in France cost eBay $61 million."
Some counterfeit products stem from overruns. I.e. Lee commissions an order for 500 pairs of jeans from a factory, the factory gets sent 600 logos and makes 600 pairs of jeans. They get paid for the original 500 count jean order and then turn around and sell the real deal (same factory, same material and techniques, same quality, real logo) to the black market. Except the additional 100 pairs are counterfeit (Legally so).
Sounds like a perfectly reasonable excuse to prevent a legit buyer of a pair of the original 500 jeans from reselling their product... Lets lawyer up!
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
Quite possibly. There's no good solution, and there are vested interests on both sides. eBay makes a cut of every sale, so they want as many as they can, no matter what the legitimacy of the items being sold. Tiffany makes nothing from second hand sales, so they'd love to destroy any market for them. Counterfeiting probably is more damaging to Tiffany than a legitimate resale market, but if they weren't angling to stop all 'unauthorised' sales of their products I doubt they'd be bringing a lawsuit where the only real solution is to ban any Tiffany products from eBay.
eBay can very easily be written off as assholes for a multitude of valid reasons, but for once I think we've got a situation where they can't be blamed. Short of manually approving every single auction there's not much more they can do to keep out the obvious fakes. Now add to that the ones that can't be spotted a mile off by anyone with a bit of experience and it's like asking them to send a team of experts to your house and confirm that the item you just listed is indeed genuine. Good luck with that.