7 ms·

Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

62 points by dcminter 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
CharlesColeman 8y ago
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.
- tyingq 8y ago
  That would require some better way of attaching identity for co-mingled inventory back to the actual entity that shipped it to Amazon. I don't know how much Amazon cares about it yet.
  - vernie 8y ago
    If they gave a shit they never would have commingled marketplace inventory in the first place.
  - ikeboy 8y ago
    Amazon knows on each purchase which seller the inventory came from. If a report comes in that a specific purchase was fake, they can trace which seller shipped it. This isn't complicated.
    - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
      This is wrong; if it were true, Amazon wouldn't have such a huge problem. Amazon don't know which seller it's from if it's Fulfilled by Amazon comingled inventory. You can literally ship plastic bricks to Amazon with the right UPC codes on them, ask Amazon to return some of the inventory, and get back actual products with that code that were sent to Amazon by other sellers.
      - ikeboy 8y ago
        This is true but doesn't mean Amazon doesn't know who sends what. As long as they track which box contains which units it doesn't matter if they ship A's stock for B's sales or returns, they still know it was A's stock.
        TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
        They don't track that, if they did they wouldn't have the problem.
        ikeboy 8y ago
        They claim they track it, I obviously don't run their warehouses but I don't think they'd explicitly claim it works one way if it doesn't. Why do you think keeping stock separate instantly solves a counterfeit problem?
- magnetic 8y ago
  > 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.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - iwalton3 8y ago
    A fake SD card is one that doesn't store all the data it claims to. There are SD cards on Amazon that claim to store 64 GB (or whatever), but they really store a fraction of that, with firmware that lies to the user and corrupts the data they try to store beyond the actual capacity.
    - magnetic 8y ago
      What you are describing is quite orthogonal to brands: it is simply fraud, ie selling something with specs that you know are bogus. I've seen it called "false advertising" too. That is exactly what a brand is supposed to protect you against: if a reputable brand is caught doing this, it won't take long for its reputation to go down the drain. You won't see many reputable brands engage in this, and that also explains why they rightfully complain when someone else uses their brand to push their bogus products, as their reputation can take a hit due to a malicious player. Intellectual Property protection around brands (brand names, logos, etc...) is serious business.
      - cauthon 8y ago
        You asked how an unbranded SD card can be fake, and they explained. I think the "reference point for a true item" would be an SD card with the advertised amount of storage, regardless of branding.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  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. I just bought a small physical device/tool for a particular task. (Magazine reloader.) Apparently, this small niche manufacturer has serious problems with Chinese knock-offs. However, all of the knock offs could be found with a simple generic search on Amazon. Furthermore, most of the knock offs really relied on also knocking off the branding of the original, so searching on the brand name very specifically found all of the knock offs. So this can cut both ways. Strong brands, even from small manufacturers, can cope without Amazon's intervention, but this could well raise the barriers to entry for new brands. It's really Amazon's job to keep fakes out off of its platform, and I think they should do the work themselves. I ordered 1 Gerber keychain multitool from Amazon awhile back, and I got 3 of them. The runner who grabbed the box didn't realize she/he grabbed a pack of 3. If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes? This can be a serious problem, with potentially health damaging effects. There was a problem with knockoffs of a leading brand of electronic hearing protection. These knockoffs had electronics that were too slow to clamp down on noise signals, and so could actually amplify quite dangerous levels of noise for a few milliseconds. Just last night, I was watching a YouTube video about knockoff green laser pointers. It turns out, all of the cheaper ones tested leave out a necessary filter and so leak a lot of energy as invisible infrared light. This can be quite dangerous, as it's potentially eye damaging and yet invisible, so it's far too easy to expose yourself from a back reflection, without even knowing it. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/420214/the-danger-of-green-laser-pointers/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/420214/the-danger-of-gree...
  - CharlesColeman 8y ago
    > Furthermore, most of the knock offs really relied on also knocking off the branding of the original, so searching on the brand name very specifically found all of the knock offs. That's only one class of knock off, and the easiest kind to police. > If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes? That's a really weird assertion, since Amazon's current practices are totally irrelevant. It also makes no sense to talk about order pickers being the key part of any solution. Amazon has total freedom to reform its business practices in all relevant parts of its organization to solve this problem, and I would argue it's their responsibility. Those changes would likely not be at the order fulfillment level, but at the SKU creation/inventory acquisition/seller account approval level. Personally, I think Amazon should completely separate Amazon Marketplace from their main online store, and push it onto an entirely different site that's excluded from searches by default. Then they should rework the FBA into a program that has very high standards and accountability, and make it the only way 3rd party sellers can get things listed on the main Amazon site.
- behringer 8y ago
  This isn't solving any problem user's have had. This is purely about knocking out the second hand market and unauthorized resellers.
tyingq 8y ago
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.
- wstuartcl 8y ago
  Or worse yet, brands utilizing this functionality with no penalty to shut down lower market price on goods received out of band from direct orders. There needs to be a penalty for brands using this to shut down real offers.
- ctvo 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    Amazon FBA, which made this problem much harder, was launched in 2006. I don't feel like "took this long" is unreasonable.
    - ctvo 8y ago
      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?
      - 8y ago
astrodust 8y ago
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
r00fus 8y ago
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 8y ago
  Probably the same reason mom and dad don’t try to figure out who started it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Raphmedia 8y ago
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-ounce/dp/B0018Z4DAE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Joico-111772-K-pak-Conditioner-33-8-o...
- glaurung_ 8y ago
  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.
fakghy 8y ago
Let's burn books !
gvand 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.
hnsucksalot 8y ago
Let's start burning books that are not aligned with left media.
sputknick 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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.
- teilo 8y ago
  This was the first thing I thought of. Is this the Amazon equivalent to YouTubes utterly broken copyright system? On YouTube, anyone can claim they own copyright on anyone else's video, even out of spite, without proof, and it is taken down with no recourse possible, except to the person who falsely claimed the copyright.
otterwww 8y ago
This has existed for the better part of 4 years BTW. No idea why it’s suddenly newsworthy - slow week?
- teilo 8y ago
  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.
acheron 8y ago
No reason to link to blogspam. The actual release of information is here: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-zero https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-project-zer...
- skymt 8y ago
  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.
teilo 8y ago
I suspect some serious first-sale violations will occur with this new system.
KwanEsq 8y ago
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.

62 points by dcminter 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

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.

tyingq 8y ago
That would require some better way of attaching identity for co-mingled inventory back to the actual entity that shipped it to Amazon. I don't know how much Amazon cares about it yet.
- vernie 8y ago
  If they gave a shit they never would have commingled marketplace inventory in the first place.
- ikeboy 8y ago
  Amazon knows on each purchase which seller the inventory came from. If a report comes in that a specific purchase was fake, they can trace which seller shipped it. This isn't complicated.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
    This is wrong; if it were true, Amazon wouldn't have such a huge problem. Amazon don't know which seller it's from if it's Fulfilled by Amazon comingled inventory. You can literally ship plastic bricks to Amazon with the right UPC codes on them, ask Amazon to return some of the inventory, and get back actual products with that code that were sent to Amazon by other sellers.
    - ikeboy 8y ago
      This is true but doesn't mean Amazon doesn't know who sends what. As long as they track which box contains which units it doesn't matter if they ship A's stock for B's sales or returns, they still know it was A's stock.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
        They don't track that, if they did they wouldn't have the problem.
        ikeboy 8y ago
        They claim they track it, I obviously don't run their warehouses but I don't think they'd explicitly claim it works one way if it doesn't. Why do you think keeping stock separate instantly solves a counterfeit problem?
magnetic 8y ago
> 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.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- iwalton3 8y ago
  A fake SD card is one that doesn't store all the data it claims to. There are SD cards on Amazon that claim to store 64 GB (or whatever), but they really store a fraction of that, with firmware that lies to the user and corrupts the data they try to store beyond the actual capacity.
  - magnetic 8y ago
    What you are describing is quite orthogonal to brands: it is simply fraud, ie selling something with specs that you know are bogus. I've seen it called "false advertising" too. That is exactly what a brand is supposed to protect you against: if a reputable brand is caught doing this, it won't take long for its reputation to go down the drain. You won't see many reputable brands engage in this, and that also explains why they rightfully complain when someone else uses their brand to push their bogus products, as their reputation can take a hit due to a malicious player. Intellectual Property protection around brands (brand names, logos, etc...) is serious business.
    - cauthon 8y ago
      You asked how an unbranded SD card can be fake, and they explained. I think the "reference point for a true item" would be an SD card with the advertised amount of storage, regardless of branding.
stcredzero 8y ago
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. I just bought a small physical device/tool for a particular task. (Magazine reloader.) Apparently, this small niche manufacturer has serious problems with Chinese knock-offs. However, all of the knock offs could be found with a simple generic search on Amazon. Furthermore, most of the knock offs really relied on also knocking off the branding of the original, so searching on the brand name very specifically found all of the knock offs. So this can cut both ways. Strong brands, even from small manufacturers, can cope without Amazon's intervention, but this could well raise the barriers to entry for new brands. It's really Amazon's job to keep fakes out off of its platform, and I think they should do the work themselves. I ordered 1 Gerber keychain multitool from Amazon awhile back, and I got 3 of them. The runner who grabbed the box didn't realize she/he grabbed a pack of 3. If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes? This can be a serious problem, with potentially health damaging effects. There was a problem with knockoffs of a leading brand of electronic hearing protection. These knockoffs had electronics that were too slow to clamp down on noise signals, and so could actually amplify quite dangerous levels of noise for a few milliseconds. Just last night, I was watching a YouTube video about knockoff green laser pointers. It turns out, all of the cheaper ones tested leave out a necessary filter and so leak a lot of energy as invisible infrared light. This can be quite dangerous, as it's potentially eye damaging and yet invisible, so it's far too easy to expose yourself from a back reflection, without even knowing it. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/420214/the-danger-of-green-laser-pointers/ https://www.technologyreview.com/s/420214/the-danger-of-gree...
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  > Furthermore, most of the knock offs really relied on also knocking off the branding of the original, so searching on the brand name very specifically found all of the knock offs. That's only one class of knock off, and the easiest kind to police. > If they are operating at a pace where they get quantity wrong, just who at Amazon is going to take the time to inspect items and distinguish the fakes? That's a really weird assertion, since Amazon's current practices are totally irrelevant. It also makes no sense to talk about order pickers being the key part of any solution. Amazon has total freedom to reform its business practices in all relevant parts of its organization to solve this problem, and I would argue it's their responsibility. Those changes would likely not be at the order fulfillment level, but at the SKU creation/inventory acquisition/seller account approval level. Personally, I think Amazon should completely separate Amazon Marketplace from their main online store, and push it onto an entirely different site that's excluded from searches by default. Then they should rework the FBA into a program that has very high standards and accountability, and make it the only way 3rd party sellers can get things listed on the main Amazon site.
behringer 8y ago
This isn't solving any problem user's have had. This is purely about knocking out the second hand market and unauthorized resellers.

tyingq 8y ago

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.

wstuartcl 8y ago
Or worse yet, brands utilizing this functionality with no penalty to shut down lower market price on goods received out of band from direct orders. There needs to be a penalty for brands using this to shut down real offers.
ctvo 8y ago
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 8y ago
  Amazon FBA, which made this problem much harder, was launched in 2006. I don't feel like "took this long" is unreasonable.
  - ctvo 8y ago
    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?
    - 8y ago

astrodust 8y ago

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

r00fus 8y ago

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 8y ago
Probably the same reason mom and dad don’t try to figure out who started it.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Raphmedia 8y ago

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

glaurung_ 8y ago
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.

fakghy 8y ago

Let's burn books !

gvand 8y ago

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 8y ago
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.

hnsucksalot 8y ago

Let's start burning books that are not aligned with left media.

sputknick 8y ago

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 8y ago
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.
teilo 8y ago
This was the first thing I thought of. Is this the Amazon equivalent to YouTubes utterly broken copyright system? On YouTube, anyone can claim they own copyright on anyone else's video, even out of spite, without proof, and it is taken down with no recourse possible, except to the person who falsely claimed the copyright.

otterwww 8y ago

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

teilo 8y ago
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.

acheron 8y ago

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

skymt 8y ago
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.

teilo 8y ago

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

KwanEsq 8y ago

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.