Retail giant Amazon has revealed a new measure to help eliminate counterfeits across the consumer products industry.
The company’s Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX) is an industry partnership designed to make it safer to shop online and more difficult for counterfeiters to move among different stores to attempt to sell counterfeit products.
“Active cooperation among private sector firms is key to combating illicit counterfeiting networks,” says Daniel Castro, Director of the Center for Data Innovation. “In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security called on private sector stakeholders to take a more active role in detecting and preventing the trafficking of counterfeit goods. It’s encouraging to see Amazon and other stores answer this call by creating the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange.”
Participating companies can regularly share information about confirmed counterfeiters who attempted to use their services to sell counterfeit goods. By sharing this information, ACX participants can identify and stop perpetrators more quickly than they would without collaborative data sharing. An independent third party provides anonymous access for participants to receive and share information.
“We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits,” says Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s Vice President of Selling Partner Services. “As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnerships to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industry-wide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry’s collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing customers and rights owners with greater peace of mind.”
ACX has also enabled participating stores to improve their individual risk evaluation systems and make more robust referrals to law enforcement so bad actors can be held accountable. Through ACX, Amazon has already detected hundreds of matching accounts where a counterfeiter tried to create selling accounts on Amazon and at least one other store operator.
“The IPR Center applauds the foundational efforts made by the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange, and we’re pleased to have been a part of its creation,” says James Mancuso, Director of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. “This is an opening salvo in a much larger battle against counterfeiters and criminal organizations, and the effort will need even greater participation, from all industries and sectors, to reach its full potential. We look forward to supporting this momentous effort with all of the tools that the IPR Center brings to bear.”
Amazon has been working with other members of ACX to pilot the exchange, ensure the appropriate guardrails, and design a scalable way to broaden participation to additional companies.
For the toy industry, counterfeit products available through e-commerce websites and third-party marketplaces have been a growing concern. Not only do infringing products hurt sales of official goods, knockoffs can also pose a significant safety risk to consumers.
