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PopSockets CEO calls out Amazon's tactics before House committee

273 points by ilamont 7y ago

metalliqaz 7y ago
Amazon is extremely shady and it doesn't just hurt companies like PopSockets. Amazon has a counterfeits problem and it's bad for customers. It is totally obvious now that Amazon embraces cheap Chinese knockoffs, and I'm sick of having to send them back.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  So, stop buying them? As long as people continue to value absolute cheapest crap over quality, even if it means frequent returns, Amazon will continue to do what it does.
  - echelon 7y ago
    That doesn't stop other people from buying them. Your dis-involvement will not stop the abuse, which is why the government must step in and stop them.
    - the_gastropod 7y ago
      Yes yes. But these things aren't mutually exclusive. Every extra dime of profit you willingly give Amazon is another they have to lobby and fight against government regulation. We can fight these battles on two fronts: stop voluntarily giving Amazon your money, and demand action from your elected representatives.
      - echelon 7y ago
        I wholeheartedly agree. I just take opposition to those who say Amazon is doing nothing wrong and that I should just stop buying from them and that somehow makes everything better.
        alistairSH 7y ago
        Where did I ever say that? I simply said stop doing business with them. If you want to follow up with your Congressman, great.
  - arprocter 7y ago
    The issue is that the listing is for a genuine product, but then you get sent a fake (even when 'fulfilled by Amazon') Happened to me once with a watch strap, but the price wasn't high enough for me to go through the hassle of returning it
    - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
      And I guarantee that that strap had a >4.5 star rating. The whole site is nothing but >4.5 star ratings now, hmmmm.
      - genericone 7y ago
        4.5 stars with +1000 reviews for a brand that has only existed for a year.
        arkitaip 7y ago
        Another fraud pattern allowed by Amazon. They simply should allow sellers to modify major aspects of a product listing once it's been published.
        tartoran 7y ago
        And if you look at the reviews they reference a different product or are too generic to be taken seriously. Amazon has allowed this to happen on a big scale. I personally avoid Amazon now.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      > Happened to me once with a watch strap, but the price wasn't high enough for me to go through the hassle of returning it In my experience, Amazon will just refund cheap items without even asking for you to return anything. I have no idea how many things I've returned to Amazon over the years, but it's a lot - easily many dozens of products. I'd guess about 20% of the time, because the item is cheap, they just let me keep it and give me back my money.
      - 7y ago
  - jamisteven 7y ago
    exactly.
  - StreamBright 7y ago
    I never agreed to buy a Chinese fake version of product X because it is Y% cheaper. Quite the contrary, I would pay more if I get the original, every single time I place an order. Amazon stopped being an option for anything serious or easily faked. I simply go to the physical stores or order it from online stores that do not have counterfeit problems. I could not give 2 shits about 10 cent price differences, which is usually the difference.
  - csdreamer7 7y ago
    A lot of people can't tell the difference between fakes and the real thing. Sometimes it is obvious, heavy cotton shirts that feel thin to the touch. Other times it is not. Some overseas manufacturers will put corn starch in a shirt to make it feel thicker then it is. Wash it several times and the shirt feels thin. Allowing counterfeits destroys the incentive for people to make quality products. Why build a brand when someone will sell a fake for half the price and people will complain about it on your website? Allowing a giant marketplace to willfully infringe products harms the market as a whole.
  - vehementi 7y ago
    Oh boy it's the hourly "don't punish the fraudsters, just try to teach a billion people to work around this particular fraud too, and blame them when they don't" post
- Marsymars 7y ago
  I was recently searching for 1TB flash drives. Currently, when I search for "1tb flash drive" on amazon.com, after ads and an Amazon's Choice banner, the top result is a listing for a $20 product: https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Memory-Rotatable-Laptop-Computer/dp/B07NY9WR28/ https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Memory-Rotatable-Laptop-Compute...
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    This was my prime reason to cancel my Amazon Prime. For 20$ of revenue, people are willing to destroy other people's work and memories. In my case, it was a fake Kingston SD Card and luckily used it only for a Rasberry pi. It cost me only a day of figuring out what I am doing wrong but easily it could have cost me my photos from a trip to a remote place. Of course, Amazon would deal with that as if it was 20$(or whatever) issue and everything is supposed to be O.K. when you get a refund.
    - RomanBob 7y ago
      You should test your SD cards as you receive them. Many applications that can do that. Even legit SD cards from well known manufacturers are not without defects.
  - artursapek 7y ago
    The seller also has a "Digital Scale" that appears to be a re-purposed product listing page for a USB drive (based on reviews) https://www.amazon.com/Metal-256GB-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B076BDNTBT?ref_=ast_bbp_dp#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Metal-256GB-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B076BD... Very strange.
    - pridkett 7y ago
      This is common. Amazon lets sellers tweak their product pages. What unscrupulous settlers have realized is that you can slowly change one product into another and keep the reviews. This allows them to have fake products with hundreds of verified purchases.
  - 7y ago
- xvector 7y ago
  Are there any alternatives you use? I try to buy the highest quality version of whatever product I'm looking for and this is completely impossible on Amazon. Every product is a cheap Chinese clone and the next 100 products are the same exact thing with a different color scheme. It's a nightmare.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    For electronics, B&H or BestBuy. For outdoor goods REI or any of the Backcountry online stores. Or direct from the manufacturer. My typical shopping pattern is to search for whatever I want, scan several review sites (realizing many of them are paid to pimp stuff), figure out which brand/model I want, then start googling.
- dan-robertson 7y ago
  An issue I have with Amazon these days is with books. Many slightly obscure books these days come print-on-demand rather than from an earlier, larger offset-printing run. I don’t know if the original publishers do this service or if the books are counterfeit too (I remember reading complaints here about low quality copies of books which the commenter thought were counterfeit. Though I’m not so convinced of that) Print on demand means that the book is only printed when (or shortly before) your order comes in. This reduces the risk of not being able to sell all the copies in a larger offset run and of storage but at a higher per-unit printing cost. I typically recognise these books by soft edges on letters (even dots of ink around the letters giving a fuzzy underline) and blurry diagrams. This is particularly bad for small labels or footnotes. I also saw some absolutely awful photographs that looked like they came out of an inkjet printer running low on ink (ie not great resolution and big stripes of off colours running across the image). Another sign is a sparse first page (the one listing information about the publishers and print run), or even a blank first page with a little printers name in the back. The kind of offset printing one normally sees in books leaves much crisper edges (I think the ink is more sticky and more shiny too; perhaps sitting ever so slightly above the page rather than feathered into it). Plates also somehow look much better. I don’t know how they are made. I wish there were a way to know whether or not you’re going to get a print-on-demand book because often the quality is very poor and I’d be willing to invest time looking elsewhere for an offset printed copy. But perhaps I get more print on demand books than I know. Indeed I read that Amazon’s own print on demand service produces very high quality results and if thats true it would probably be a good thing for getting consistent quality books from Amazon. Certainly all the poor quality books I’ve ever gotten were print-on-demand (or digital printing which, as far as I can tell, is basically the same thing).
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    My last book purchase was print on demand. I knew Amazon did that for some titles but I assumed they’d tell you. If it said somewhere, it wasn’t obvious. The book arrived with the printing offset vertically by about an inch so the bottom margin was huge and the top margin just under the top of the page. It’s not unreadable but it’s a pain to read and I’m looking for the title elsewhere and just not buying books from Amazon again. It’s really not excusable. Either there are no humans in the loop or some actually looked at this and decided to send it anyway. I’ve already got a list of products I won’t buy from them but I never thought books would be on the list.
- all_blue_chucks 7y ago
  The article says they mentioned gray market suppliers. Gray market is not the same as "knock offs" or the black market. Gray market usually just means "sold legally without manufacturer warranty."
- JamalW 7y ago
  I have purchased hundreds of items from Amazon and have yet to discover one of the items being fake. I think this problem is blown out of proportion by consumers who lack common sense or are proponents of further regulation of Amazon. I suppose the proponents’ argument is we have an obligation to these consumers who can’t differentiate between junk and non-junk because not everyone has two eyes and a brain behind them. Some people are blind etc. which actually is a fair point now that I think about it.. Amazon could require all sellers to send in their product for review to confirm it’s validity. This would add additional costs but the costs could potentially be offset from the positive response from consumers who have had issues discerning product realness.
  - metalliqaz 7y ago
    I find that it depends a lot on what you buy. I have not noticed any fakes on regular household items. However, I buy a lot of cables and adapters because of what I do and for those items it's a problem.
gowld 7y ago
> He asserted that Amazon representatives would tell him over the phone: "If we don't get it, then we're going to source product from the gray market." Record your phone calls with customers, just like they do.
- gruez 7y ago
  Legal in 2 party consent states like California?
  - asdfasdf1231 7y ago
    You can probably use alexa to record, then you will download from AWS. interesting times to be a lawyer :D
  - inetknght 7y ago
    Just announce that the call "may" be recorded for "quality assurance purposes" just as California businesses do.
- post_break 7y ago
  That's exactly what costco does though.
birdyrooster 7y ago
As a wrinkle to this conversation, Amazons product and treatment of customers/vendors causes even more harm to the environment. People buy more things that they are unsatisfied with than ever before. There are more returns than ever before. There are likely millions more frivolous purchases and many thousands of tons of cardboard and non-recyclable plastics generated each year thanks to Amazon Prime.
- gdulli 7y ago
  They've done everything possible to engineer impulse buying into e-commerce. At a high level, conflating excess with "convenience" is not a good thing for the environment, or for anyone but them. I don't have Prime or use one-click and for me making an online order still involves the mindset of asking myself, do I really need this? Avoiding Amazon also saved me money on my last purchase because I picked something up for $4.80 from Michaels on the way home from work when Amazon's price was $8.50.
  - plandis 7y ago
    That’s literally the same behavior of most stores. Your local grocery store probably is not laid out for the best customer experience, it’s laid out to best maximize profit.
- blakesterz 7y ago
  "treatment of customers" I know I'm an N of 1 but speaking purely as a customer Amazon has been nothing but awesome. And I know that's probably seen by many as maybe selfish and wrong, and I get that argument totally. But I can the stuff I want* pretty darn fast and pretty darn cheap and if it's not what I want it's easy to send back. I understand that might be short sighted with all the drawbacks, but I still keep ordering. The pluses outweigh the minuses. Am I being selfish? * Not the stuff I need, but the stuff I want. I think that's an important point.I guess I go to Wegmans for the stuff I need.
  - jfim 7y ago
    They used to be pretty consumer-centric a decade ago, but personally I pretty much stopped buying on Amazon in the last couple of years. Having to inspect the items for counterfeits, dealing with support if the item isn't functional (or slightly defective), getting messages from sellers to "make sure to write us a 5 star review", eventual consistency on the shopping cart price (eg. if the price of an item increases between adding it to the cart and checking out, there's no big red warning like "hey this item is 30% more expensive than when you put it in your cart three minutes ago, are you sure you want to check out at this new price"), awful delivery experiences, it's just not worth the hassle anymore IMO.
jamisteven 7y ago
Ok? If it wasnt for AMZN do you think popsockets would have scaled that quick? No. Would this CEO have even 1/4 his net worth? Not likely. Seriously if AMZN is such a pain in his side why doesnt he just drop them? Thats right, because THEY are the retailer, not him.
- tehwebguy 7y ago
  Highly doubtful, PopSockets are distributed in basically every brick & mortar shop in the US. Also: > "Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    > > "Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted. If this is true, then the right venue to take this up is in a court of law.
    - untog 7y ago
      Who's to say that they aren't? Seems like you could do that and talk to the House when invited.
    - tehwebguy 7y ago
      They almost certainly are, they have a patent on the accordion design and they are vigilant about defending it.
- TheNorthman 7y ago
  > why doesnt he just drop them? Well, that's actually what the article is about. You'll note for example the following paragraphs: > Barnett was addressing members of the House Subcommittee on [Antitrust law] and, over the course of the hearing, laid out how the Jeff Bezos-helmed corporate behemoth had pressured his smartphone accessory company > [They detailed] how the major tech players have used their market dominance to squeeze smaller competitors in allegedly anticompetitive ways.
ikeboy 7y ago
Popsockets is one of the biggest bullies in the marketplace. They've sued many, many sellers that were selling legitimate products trying to bully them off the market with various loopholes in the first sale doctrine. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14939738/popsockets-llc-v-wilcox/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14939738/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16007022/popsockets-llc-v-sussman/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16007022/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15050057/popsockets-llc-v-online-king-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15050057/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15683859/popsockets-llc-v-outlook-fba-corp/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15683859/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15639919/popsockets-llc-v-handler/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15639919/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620695/popsockets-llc-v-gancfried/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620695/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620699/popsockets-llc-v-yef-trading-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620699/popsockets-llc... The basic strategy is to include a bunch of FUD about how there's counterfeiters in general on Amazon, then try to lump legitimate sellers in with that. See the 79 page complaint from my last link, filed just last month. They have a template lawsuit that's dozens of pages long, and they just fill in the specific seller details. They have a bunch of screenshots of negative customer reviews, but those are from Amazon broadly and are not connected to the seller they're suing - they use the same negative reviews for all their lawsuits. (It looks like they have two negative feedback for popsocket sales traced to that account out of the many pages of negative reviews that isn't connected to an account.) To be clear, they are not alleging counterfeits in the lawsuits. The claim is that the product doesn't carry the manufacturer warranty, and that sellers don't follow the right quality controls, both of which are very shaky claims legally (warranty restrictions are problematic under federal law, and there's no serious quality control concern on sealed electronics accessory products - it's the same product in the same warehouses, it doesn't magically become lower quality just because a different seller is selling it. There's a potential quality control concern with groceries or products requiring temperature controls, but it stretches credibility to argue that applies to sealed popsockets.) But a small seller can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to get a court decision affirming that. I know multiple sellers that have settled rather than fighting it. It's the path of least resistance. Popsockets is not the only brand that's been using these abusive tactics. There's a string of lawsuits by Otterbox, Skullcandy, GNC, Murad, Standard Process, Noco, and others. Most of them are being pushed by a lawfirm called Vorys, which is associated with a large Amazon seller by the name of iServe/Pattern (one of the top 10 third party Amazon sellers, see https://www.sellerratings.com/amazon/usa https://www.sellerratings.com/amazon/usa, note Zappos and 6PM are Amazon-owned and Asurion, LLC is selling services, not products), that gets exclusive contracts with brands and then sues many of their competition that's undercutting them. It's a scheme just begging for an anti-trust investigation.
rahimnathwani 7y ago
'"Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted.' How do they know that Amazon sourced the counterfeit? Amazon's own inventory may be commingled with those of third parties so, even if you receive a counterfeit, it may have nothing to do with Amazon's own sourcing. (Unless you consider the whole commingling approach to be part of Amazon's sourcing.)
- willis936 7y ago
  Does branding “amazon basics” count as amazon sourcing? Because amazon basics are often counterfeits of the cheap items they pretend to be.
  - wmf 7y ago
    I don't think Amazon Basics counts as "counterfeit" for the purpose of this discussion.
    - willis936 7y ago
      Not all of them. They’re branded as knockoffs. Basics are occasionally counterfeits of knockoffs.
- freeone3000 7y ago
  For normal retail channels, yes, anything sold through their storefront is considered sourced by them.
legitster 7y ago
On one hand, I don't necessarily mind that established brands get sent down a peg. Especially when they sell an entirely commodified product and expect a retailer to help pad their "brand". On the other hand - the Amazon shopping experience has sucked lately. Ever since they allowed foreign sellers, every product line is flooded with cheap options and you never know what kind of crap you get. I honestly think their e-commerce may have peeked. They only allowed foreign sellers to keep up with growing competition, are dumping huge amounts of money into ads, and from personal experience of myself and those I know, Amazon Prime feels much less essential than it used to be.
- JackFr 7y ago
  > On one hand, I don't necessarily mind that established brands get sent down a peg. Especially when they sell an entirely commodified product and expect a retailer to help pad their "brand". For any product that's basically extruded plastic, Amazon is literally Robin Hood taking brand equity and distributing it to the people.
pbiggar 7y ago
If congress wants to investigate Amazon's anti-trust stuff, they should spend some time looking at AWS.
JackFr 7y ago
Hey Congress, maybe focus more on the price of insulin rather than pop sockets.
- btmiller 7y ago
  It's not mutually exclusive, Congress (whether they exercise it or not is another question, but) has the capacity to do both.
  - gonational 7y ago
    Congress, nay, government in general, has neither the capacity nor the ability to affect the price of anything, in the long run. Lest we increase prices through the introduction of more regulatory in efficiencies in what would have otherwise been a free market, our government should not interfere in matters of a private enterprise. ~ Adam Smith (just kidding, but he would probably agree)
- wmf 7y ago
  Amazon bought PillPack. You won't believe what happens next!
- wnevets 7y ago
  if only there was some way to do both
- ProAm 7y ago
  Congress is dealing with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google not really pop sockets.
adaisadais 7y ago
Amazon, or Wal-Mart in the Sky, is truly an incredible company and business. But a good name is worth more than $. If they continue these negative business practices their brand equity will slowly continue to decrease over time. The general public is not yet as wary of their power as most HN readers but it won’t be look until a new competitor (or preexisting) starts nipping away at their bottom line.
- CriticalCathed 7y ago
  Wal-mart has a hideous reputation among the general public and that doesn't seem to stop them. Walmart grows YoY every quarter. I'm not certain their reputation will change much so long as they can still ship a product to my house in one day for less money than at a physical store, and have effortless returns.
  - toasterlovin 7y ago
    > Wal-mart has a hideous reputation among the general public Does it actually? Or does it just have a hideous reputation among the upper classes because it is a thing of the lower classes (like country music and pickup trucks)?
    - mywittyname 7y ago
      It's in general. For reasons ranging from union busting, bullying small suppliers, abusing employees, or being a burden on local governments. No matter your politics, you can find a reason to hate Walmart. But Walmart was often the only shopping center in a 40 mile radius for much of the US, meaning you had to shop there regardless of how you felt about them.
    - bdcravens 7y ago
      According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Walmart has one of the lowest ratings. https://www.theacsi.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=149&catid=14&Itemid=214&c=Wal-Mart&i=Supermarkets https://www.theacsi.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=... https://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=149&catid=&Itemid=212&i=Department+and+Discount+Stores https://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=ar...
ectqmbe 7y ago
This is not new behaviour out of Amazon. I mean... look at what happened with Diapers.com (Quidsi) and Zappos back in the earlier days. Amazon approaches most deals with "Play our game our way in our stadium or we'll ruin you. Oh, by the way, you have to pay rent on the stadium and if you make too much money we may just ruin you anyway." One of the most compelling reasons to not use AWS is every time a company does something novel and has any business relationship with Amazon, they start a competing business. From that perspective, they're a huge IP risk. If they can't win at the competition they try to buy the company. If they can't buy the company, they use their deep coffers and dominant e-retail position to apply unethical (if not illegal) screws. They're pretty much the modern equivalent of Standard Oil or U.S. Steel. I don't really believe that it will happen, but I really hope that Congress gets off their butt and does something about it.
- blazespin 7y ago
  Yeah, AWS needs to be split out. But, alas, amazon can't afford to do that because those profits are funding the rest of the company. They are extremely vulnerable as a company here and is a strategic opportunity for other cloud vendors. Just push down cloud margins and Amazon will slowly be out priced. Without having some kind of control over prices, you are not a very viable business. Amazon is in a very fragile position. Honestly, I have no idea why government is getting involved here. Let the market eat them.
blazespin 7y ago
Not sure what he means by sourcing from the gray market? Does he mean that it's illegal to produce pop sockets because of copyright or patent infringement and Amazon is facilitating this? Or is he thinking that anyone who produces a competitive product is somehow wrong? If the former, that truly is (or should be) illegal and I hope Amazon is punished dearly. If the latter, what a wimp. This is capitalism baby, and you need to buck up. You think walmart doesn't use it's market dominance in retail to try to push prices down? How do you think we've got so much progress in our consumer markets. Understand, that Amazon is not profiting here when it pushes prices down. It's just trying to deliver a better service for it's customers and compete with other companies like Walmart. In fact, Amazon's margins decrease when it pushes prices down. That all said, I really have no idea what he means by gray market and willing to learn.
- bagacrap 7y ago
  I don't think he is describing activity that is outright illegal. That's why he's calling it "bullying" and "incredibly shady" rather than suing for breach of contract or patent infringement.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    The whole idea of grey market products is shady to begin with. If the genuine product is available for sale elsewhere for less, I as a consumer should be able to purchase it at that discounted price. If Amazon is strong-arming manufacturers by sourcing genuine grey market products, that's a good thing for consumers and we should support Amazon. If Amazon is strong-arming manufacturers by sourcing counterfeit products, that's bad for consumers and we should not support Amazon.
    - c2h5oh 7y ago
      What if Amazon wasn't going to look too closely if the gray market stuff is counterfeit or not?
      - 7y ago
blt 7y ago
I stopped buying anything expensive and simple to manufacture from Amazon. I now only use it for things where I want the no-name version anyway, like RGB LED strips and curtains. Essentially treat it like AliExpress with fast shipping.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
It's not unique to Amazon. My company did a deal with a F50 retailer that you've shopped at. About a month ahead of the first deliverable which was agreed to in the statement of work, one of their VPs called me and screamed at me demanding a live demo or they would cancel any further payments on the contract. Oh and stay on the original delivery timeframe. We were small enough that we couldn't afford to fight that in court and losing that client would have been the loss of our biggest deal and a huge negative signal. So we made it work but it just proved to me that contracts without the ability to enforce them don't mean anything.
someonehere 7y ago
I discovered that when you receive a random Amazon package sent to your home, it’s a scam for the product. From what I’ve read and been told by people, it’s a seller from Amazon shipping you their product using a gift card. They create an account using your info (not sure how they get it, maybe public info web sites), ship you their product and pay for it with a gift card. They then create a review of the product you received as you. It’s then considered a verified buyer of the product. So it’s essentially buying reviews. It’s happened to a few of my friends.
wufufufu 7y ago
Everyone keeps talking about cheap Chinese clones but I don’t know what they’re talking about. Are you talking about generic products that have a Chinese sounding brand name?
plandis 7y ago
I’m a bit skeptical of this for a few reasons. If Amazon is in breach of contract then why is PopSockets not taking them to court? What is the gray market in this case? Buying a product similar from a different company? That just seems like a smart business tactic, IMO
- speedplane 7y ago
  > I’m a bit skeptical of this for a few reasons. If Amazon is in breach of contract then why is PopSockets not taking them to court? What is the gray market in this case? Buying a product similar from a different company? That just seems like a smart business tactic, IMO The "gray market" indicate cheap knock-offs of new products. For example, literally days after Tile released their bluetooth powered device locators, you could find cheaper knock-offs from China. These products may very well infringe Tile's patents and trademarks, but proving infringement in court takes years and costs millions of dollars. Even if you win, during that time many other knock-off manufacturers will pop up and you'll have to start all over. At that point your company will be dead. Intellectual property litigation is simply not strong enough to protect smaller companies. So a threat to go to the gray market from Amazon, can effectively spell the doom for your company. As an aside, while this is a problem for small companies, larger companies can usually afford to wage these large IP litigation campaigns. A good example is Bosch which sells patented windshield wiper blades. There are numerous knock-offs from China, but Bosch goes to war with each and every one. Eventually, Bosch starts earning a reputation and the knock-offs slow down. But this takes many years of heavy investment in IP enforcement and never entirely goes away. It only makes sense at very large scales, no small company could take on this burden.

273 points by ilamont 7y ago

Amazon is extremely shady and it doesn't just hurt companies like PopSockets. Amazon has a counterfeits problem and it's bad for customers. It is totally obvious now that Amazon embraces cheap Chinese knockoffs, and I'm sick of having to send them back.

alistairSH 7y ago
So, stop buying them? As long as people continue to value absolute cheapest crap over quality, even if it means frequent returns, Amazon will continue to do what it does.
- echelon 7y ago
  That doesn't stop other people from buying them. Your dis-involvement will not stop the abuse, which is why the government must step in and stop them.
  - the_gastropod 7y ago
    Yes yes. But these things aren't mutually exclusive. Every extra dime of profit you willingly give Amazon is another they have to lobby and fight against government regulation. We can fight these battles on two fronts: stop voluntarily giving Amazon your money, and demand action from your elected representatives.
    - echelon 7y ago
      I wholeheartedly agree. I just take opposition to those who say Amazon is doing nothing wrong and that I should just stop buying from them and that somehow makes everything better.
      - alistairSH 7y ago
        Where did I ever say that? I simply said stop doing business with them. If you want to follow up with your Congressman, great.
- arprocter 7y ago
  The issue is that the listing is for a genuine product, but then you get sent a fake (even when 'fulfilled by Amazon') Happened to me once with a watch strap, but the price wasn't high enough for me to go through the hassle of returning it
  - JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
    And I guarantee that that strap had a >4.5 star rating. The whole site is nothing but >4.5 star ratings now, hmmmm.
    - genericone 7y ago
      4.5 stars with +1000 reviews for a brand that has only existed for a year.
      - arkitaip 7y ago
        Another fraud pattern allowed by Amazon. They simply should allow sellers to modify major aspects of a product listing once it's been published.
      - tartoran 7y ago
        And if you look at the reviews they reference a different product or are too generic to be taken seriously. Amazon has allowed this to happen on a big scale. I personally avoid Amazon now.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    > Happened to me once with a watch strap, but the price wasn't high enough for me to go through the hassle of returning it In my experience, Amazon will just refund cheap items without even asking for you to return anything. I have no idea how many things I've returned to Amazon over the years, but it's a lot - easily many dozens of products. I'd guess about 20% of the time, because the item is cheap, they just let me keep it and give me back my money.
    - 7y ago
- jamisteven 7y ago
  exactly.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  I never agreed to buy a Chinese fake version of product X because it is Y% cheaper. Quite the contrary, I would pay more if I get the original, every single time I place an order. Amazon stopped being an option for anything serious or easily faked. I simply go to the physical stores or order it from online stores that do not have counterfeit problems. I could not give 2 shits about 10 cent price differences, which is usually the difference.
- csdreamer7 7y ago
  A lot of people can't tell the difference between fakes and the real thing. Sometimes it is obvious, heavy cotton shirts that feel thin to the touch. Other times it is not. Some overseas manufacturers will put corn starch in a shirt to make it feel thicker then it is. Wash it several times and the shirt feels thin. Allowing counterfeits destroys the incentive for people to make quality products. Why build a brand when someone will sell a fake for half the price and people will complain about it on your website? Allowing a giant marketplace to willfully infringe products harms the market as a whole.
- vehementi 7y ago
  Oh boy it's the hourly "don't punish the fraudsters, just try to teach a billion people to work around this particular fraud too, and blame them when they don't" post
Marsymars 7y ago
I was recently searching for 1TB flash drives. Currently, when I search for "1tb flash drive" on amazon.com, after ads and an Amazon's Choice banner, the top result is a listing for a $20 product: https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Memory-Rotatable-Laptop-Computer/dp/B07NY9WR28/ https://www.amazon.com/Flash-Memory-Rotatable-Laptop-Compute...
- mrtksn 7y ago
  This was my prime reason to cancel my Amazon Prime. For 20$ of revenue, people are willing to destroy other people's work and memories. In my case, it was a fake Kingston SD Card and luckily used it only for a Rasberry pi. It cost me only a day of figuring out what I am doing wrong but easily it could have cost me my photos from a trip to a remote place. Of course, Amazon would deal with that as if it was 20$(or whatever) issue and everything is supposed to be O.K. when you get a refund.
  - RomanBob 7y ago
    You should test your SD cards as you receive them. Many applications that can do that. Even legit SD cards from well known manufacturers are not without defects.
- artursapek 7y ago
  The seller also has a "Digital Scale" that appears to be a re-purposed product listing page for a USB drive (based on reviews) https://www.amazon.com/Metal-256GB-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B076BDNTBT?ref_=ast_bbp_dp#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Metal-256GB-USB-Flash-Drive/dp/B076BD... Very strange.
  - pridkett 7y ago
    This is common. Amazon lets sellers tweak their product pages. What unscrupulous settlers have realized is that you can slowly change one product into another and keep the reviews. This allows them to have fake products with hundreds of verified purchases.
- 7y ago
xvector 7y ago
Are there any alternatives you use? I try to buy the highest quality version of whatever product I'm looking for and this is completely impossible on Amazon. Every product is a cheap Chinese clone and the next 100 products are the same exact thing with a different color scheme. It's a nightmare.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  For electronics, B&H or BestBuy. For outdoor goods REI or any of the Backcountry online stores. Or direct from the manufacturer. My typical shopping pattern is to search for whatever I want, scan several review sites (realizing many of them are paid to pimp stuff), figure out which brand/model I want, then start googling.
dan-robertson 7y ago
An issue I have with Amazon these days is with books. Many slightly obscure books these days come print-on-demand rather than from an earlier, larger offset-printing run. I don’t know if the original publishers do this service or if the books are counterfeit too (I remember reading complaints here about low quality copies of books which the commenter thought were counterfeit. Though I’m not so convinced of that) Print on demand means that the book is only printed when (or shortly before) your order comes in. This reduces the risk of not being able to sell all the copies in a larger offset run and of storage but at a higher per-unit printing cost. I typically recognise these books by soft edges on letters (even dots of ink around the letters giving a fuzzy underline) and blurry diagrams. This is particularly bad for small labels or footnotes. I also saw some absolutely awful photographs that looked like they came out of an inkjet printer running low on ink (ie not great resolution and big stripes of off colours running across the image). Another sign is a sparse first page (the one listing information about the publishers and print run), or even a blank first page with a little printers name in the back. The kind of offset printing one normally sees in books leaves much crisper edges (I think the ink is more sticky and more shiny too; perhaps sitting ever so slightly above the page rather than feathered into it). Plates also somehow look much better. I don’t know how they are made. I wish there were a way to know whether or not you’re going to get a print-on-demand book because often the quality is very poor and I’d be willing to invest time looking elsewhere for an offset printed copy. But perhaps I get more print on demand books than I know. Indeed I read that Amazon’s own print on demand service produces very high quality results and if thats true it would probably be a good thing for getting consistent quality books from Amazon. Certainly all the poor quality books I’ve ever gotten were print-on-demand (or digital printing which, as far as I can tell, is basically the same thing).
- cgriswald 7y ago
  My last book purchase was print on demand. I knew Amazon did that for some titles but I assumed they’d tell you. If it said somewhere, it wasn’t obvious. The book arrived with the printing offset vertically by about an inch so the bottom margin was huge and the top margin just under the top of the page. It’s not unreadable but it’s a pain to read and I’m looking for the title elsewhere and just not buying books from Amazon again. It’s really not excusable. Either there are no humans in the loop or some actually looked at this and decided to send it anyway. I’ve already got a list of products I won’t buy from them but I never thought books would be on the list.
all_blue_chucks 7y ago
The article says they mentioned gray market suppliers. Gray market is not the same as "knock offs" or the black market. Gray market usually just means "sold legally without manufacturer warranty."
JamalW 7y ago
I have purchased hundreds of items from Amazon and have yet to discover one of the items being fake. I think this problem is blown out of proportion by consumers who lack common sense or are proponents of further regulation of Amazon. I suppose the proponents’ argument is we have an obligation to these consumers who can’t differentiate between junk and non-junk because not everyone has two eyes and a brain behind them. Some people are blind etc. which actually is a fair point now that I think about it.. Amazon could require all sellers to send in their product for review to confirm it’s validity. This would add additional costs but the costs could potentially be offset from the positive response from consumers who have had issues discerning product realness.
- metalliqaz 7y ago
  I find that it depends a lot on what you buy. I have not noticed any fakes on regular household items. However, I buy a lot of cables and adapters because of what I do and for those items it's a problem.

gowld 7y ago

> He asserted that Amazon representatives would tell him over the phone: "If we don't get it, then we're going to source product from the gray market." Record your phone calls with customers, just like they do.

gruez 7y ago
Legal in 2 party consent states like California?
- asdfasdf1231 7y ago
  You can probably use alexa to record, then you will download from AWS. interesting times to be a lawyer :D
- inetknght 7y ago
  Just announce that the call "may" be recorded for "quality assurance purposes" just as California businesses do.
post_break 7y ago
That's exactly what costco does though.

birdyrooster 7y ago

As a wrinkle to this conversation, Amazons product and treatment of customers/vendors causes even more harm to the environment. People buy more things that they are unsatisfied with than ever before. There are more returns than ever before. There are likely millions more frivolous purchases and many thousands of tons of cardboard and non-recyclable plastics generated each year thanks to Amazon Prime.

gdulli 7y ago
They've done everything possible to engineer impulse buying into e-commerce. At a high level, conflating excess with "convenience" is not a good thing for the environment, or for anyone but them. I don't have Prime or use one-click and for me making an online order still involves the mindset of asking myself, do I really need this? Avoiding Amazon also saved me money on my last purchase because I picked something up for $4.80 from Michaels on the way home from work when Amazon's price was $8.50.
- plandis 7y ago
  That’s literally the same behavior of most stores. Your local grocery store probably is not laid out for the best customer experience, it’s laid out to best maximize profit.
blakesterz 7y ago
"treatment of customers" I know I'm an N of 1 but speaking purely as a customer Amazon has been nothing but awesome. And I know that's probably seen by many as maybe selfish and wrong, and I get that argument totally. But I can the stuff I want* pretty darn fast and pretty darn cheap and if it's not what I want it's easy to send back. I understand that might be short sighted with all the drawbacks, but I still keep ordering. The pluses outweigh the minuses. Am I being selfish? * Not the stuff I need, but the stuff I want. I think that's an important point.I guess I go to Wegmans for the stuff I need.
- jfim 7y ago
  They used to be pretty consumer-centric a decade ago, but personally I pretty much stopped buying on Amazon in the last couple of years. Having to inspect the items for counterfeits, dealing with support if the item isn't functional (or slightly defective), getting messages from sellers to "make sure to write us a 5 star review", eventual consistency on the shopping cart price (eg. if the price of an item increases between adding it to the cart and checking out, there's no big red warning like "hey this item is 30% more expensive than when you put it in your cart three minutes ago, are you sure you want to check out at this new price"), awful delivery experiences, it's just not worth the hassle anymore IMO.

jamisteven 7y ago

Ok? If it wasnt for AMZN do you think popsockets would have scaled that quick? No. Would this CEO have even 1/4 his net worth? Not likely. Seriously if AMZN is such a pain in his side why doesnt he just drop them? Thats right, because THEY are the retailer, not him.

tehwebguy 7y ago
Highly doubtful, PopSockets are distributed in basically every brick & mortar shop in the US. Also: > "Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > > "Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted. If this is true, then the right venue to take this up is in a court of law.
  - untog 7y ago
    Who's to say that they aren't? Seems like you could do that and talk to the House when invited.
  - tehwebguy 7y ago
    They almost certainly are, they have a patent on the accordion design and they are vigilant about defending it.
TheNorthman 7y ago
> why doesnt he just drop them? Well, that's actually what the article is about. You'll note for example the following paragraphs: > Barnett was addressing members of the House Subcommittee on [Antitrust law] and, over the course of the hearing, laid out how the Jeff Bezos-helmed corporate behemoth had pressured his smartphone accessory company > [They detailed] how the major tech players have used their market dominance to squeeze smaller competitors in allegedly anticompetitive ways.

ikeboy 7y ago

Popsockets is one of the biggest bullies in the marketplace. They've sued many, many sellers that were selling legitimate products trying to bully them off the market with various loopholes in the first sale doctrine. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14939738/popsockets-llc-v-wilcox/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14939738/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16007022/popsockets-llc-v-sussman/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16007022/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15050057/popsockets-llc-v-online-king-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15050057/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15683859/popsockets-llc-v-outlook-fba-corp/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15683859/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15639919/popsockets-llc-v-handler/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/15639919/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620695/popsockets-llc-v-gancfried/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620695/popsockets-llc... https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620699/popsockets-llc-v-yef-trading-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/16620699/popsockets-llc... The basic strategy is to include a bunch of FUD about how there's counterfeiters in general on Amazon, then try to lump legitimate sellers in with that. See the 79 page complaint from my last link, filed just last month. They have a template lawsuit that's dozens of pages long, and they just fill in the specific seller details. They have a bunch of screenshots of negative customer reviews, but those are from Amazon broadly and are not connected to the seller they're suing - they use the same negative reviews for all their lawsuits. (It looks like they have two negative feedback for popsocket sales traced to that account out of the many pages of negative reviews that isn't connected to an account.) To be clear, they are not alleging counterfeits in the lawsuits. The claim is that the product doesn't carry the manufacturer warranty, and that sellers don't follow the right quality controls, both of which are very shaky claims legally (warranty restrictions are problematic under federal law, and there's no serious quality control concern on sealed electronics accessory products - it's the same product in the same warehouses, it doesn't magically become lower quality just because a different seller is selling it. There's a potential quality control concern with groceries or products requiring temperature controls, but it stretches credibility to argue that applies to sealed popsockets.) But a small seller can't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to get a court decision affirming that. I know multiple sellers that have settled rather than fighting it. It's the path of least resistance. Popsockets is not the only brand that's been using these abusive tactics. There's a string of lawsuits by Otterbox, Skullcandy, GNC, Murad, Standard Process, Noco, and others. Most of them are being pushed by a lawfirm called Vorys, which is associated with a large Amazon seller by the name of iServe/Pattern (one of the top 10 third party Amazon sellers, see https://www.sellerratings.com/amazon/usa https://www.sellerratings.com/amazon/usa, note Zappos and 6PM are Amazon-owned and Asurion, LLC is selling services, not products), that gets exclusive contracts with brands and then sues many of their competition that's undercutting them. It's a scheme just begging for an anti-trust investigation.

rahimnathwani 7y ago

'"Multiple times we discovered that Amazon itself had sourced counterfeit product and was selling it alongside our own product," he noted.' How do they know that Amazon sourced the counterfeit? Amazon's own inventory may be commingled with those of third parties so, even if you receive a counterfeit, it may have nothing to do with Amazon's own sourcing. (Unless you consider the whole commingling approach to be part of Amazon's sourcing.)

willis936 7y ago
Does branding “amazon basics” count as amazon sourcing? Because amazon basics are often counterfeits of the cheap items they pretend to be.
- wmf 7y ago
  I don't think Amazon Basics counts as "counterfeit" for the purpose of this discussion.
  - willis936 7y ago
    Not all of them. They’re branded as knockoffs. Basics are occasionally counterfeits of knockoffs.
freeone3000 7y ago
For normal retail channels, yes, anything sold through their storefront is considered sourced by them.

legitster 7y ago

On one hand, I don't necessarily mind that established brands get sent down a peg. Especially when they sell an entirely commodified product and expect a retailer to help pad their "brand". On the other hand - the Amazon shopping experience has sucked lately. Ever since they allowed foreign sellers, every product line is flooded with cheap options and you never know what kind of crap you get. I honestly think their e-commerce may have peeked. They only allowed foreign sellers to keep up with growing competition, are dumping huge amounts of money into ads, and from personal experience of myself and those I know, Amazon Prime feels much less essential than it used to be.

JackFr 7y ago
> On one hand, I don't necessarily mind that established brands get sent down a peg. Especially when they sell an entirely commodified product and expect a retailer to help pad their "brand". For any product that's basically extruded plastic, Amazon is literally Robin Hood taking brand equity and distributing it to the people.

pbiggar 7y ago

If congress wants to investigate Amazon's anti-trust stuff, they should spend some time looking at AWS.

JackFr 7y ago

Hey Congress, maybe focus more on the price of insulin rather than pop sockets.

btmiller 7y ago
It's not mutually exclusive, Congress (whether they exercise it or not is another question, but) has the capacity to do both.
- gonational 7y ago
  Congress, nay, government in general, has neither the capacity nor the ability to affect the price of anything, in the long run. Lest we increase prices through the introduction of more regulatory in efficiencies in what would have otherwise been a free market, our government should not interfere in matters of a private enterprise. ~ Adam Smith (just kidding, but he would probably agree)
wmf 7y ago
Amazon bought PillPack. You won't believe what happens next!
wnevets 7y ago
if only there was some way to do both
ProAm 7y ago
Congress is dealing with Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google not really pop sockets.

adaisadais 7y ago

Amazon, or Wal-Mart in the Sky, is truly an incredible company and business. But a good name is worth more than $. If they continue these negative business practices their brand equity will slowly continue to decrease over time. The general public is not yet as wary of their power as most HN readers but it won’t be look until a new competitor (or preexisting) starts nipping away at their bottom line.

CriticalCathed 7y ago
Wal-mart has a hideous reputation among the general public and that doesn't seem to stop them. Walmart grows YoY every quarter. I'm not certain their reputation will change much so long as they can still ship a product to my house in one day for less money than at a physical store, and have effortless returns.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  > Wal-mart has a hideous reputation among the general public Does it actually? Or does it just have a hideous reputation among the upper classes because it is a thing of the lower classes (like country music and pickup trucks)?
  - mywittyname 7y ago
    It's in general. For reasons ranging from union busting, bullying small suppliers, abusing employees, or being a burden on local governments. No matter your politics, you can find a reason to hate Walmart. But Walmart was often the only shopping center in a 40 mile radius for much of the US, meaning you had to shop there regardless of how you felt about them.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Walmart has one of the lowest ratings. https://www.theacsi.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=149&catid=14&Itemid=214&c=Wal-Mart&i=Supermarkets https://www.theacsi.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=... https://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=149&catid=&Itemid=212&i=Department+and+Discount+Stores https://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=ar...

ectqmbe 7y ago

This is not new behaviour out of Amazon. I mean... look at what happened with Diapers.com (Quidsi) and Zappos back in the earlier days. Amazon approaches most deals with "Play our game our way in our stadium or we'll ruin you. Oh, by the way, you have to pay rent on the stadium and if you make too much money we may just ruin you anyway." One of the most compelling reasons to not use AWS is every time a company does something novel and has any business relationship with Amazon, they start a competing business. From that perspective, they're a huge IP risk. If they can't win at the competition they try to buy the company. If they can't buy the company, they use their deep coffers and dominant e-retail position to apply unethical (if not illegal) screws. They're pretty much the modern equivalent of Standard Oil or U.S. Steel. I don't really believe that it will happen, but I really hope that Congress gets off their butt and does something about it.

blazespin 7y ago
Yeah, AWS needs to be split out. But, alas, amazon can't afford to do that because those profits are funding the rest of the company. They are extremely vulnerable as a company here and is a strategic opportunity for other cloud vendors. Just push down cloud margins and Amazon will slowly be out priced. Without having some kind of control over prices, you are not a very viable business. Amazon is in a very fragile position. Honestly, I have no idea why government is getting involved here. Let the market eat them.

blazespin 7y ago

Not sure what he means by sourcing from the gray market? Does he mean that it's illegal to produce pop sockets because of copyright or patent infringement and Amazon is facilitating this? Or is he thinking that anyone who produces a competitive product is somehow wrong? If the former, that truly is (or should be) illegal and I hope Amazon is punished dearly. If the latter, what a wimp. This is capitalism baby, and you need to buck up. You think walmart doesn't use it's market dominance in retail to try to push prices down? How do you think we've got so much progress in our consumer markets. Understand, that Amazon is not profiting here when it pushes prices down. It's just trying to deliver a better service for it's customers and compete with other companies like Walmart. In fact, Amazon's margins decrease when it pushes prices down. That all said, I really have no idea what he means by gray market and willing to learn.

bagacrap 7y ago
I don't think he is describing activity that is outright illegal. That's why he's calling it "bullying" and "incredibly shady" rather than suing for breach of contract or patent infringement.
- malandrew 7y ago
  The whole idea of grey market products is shady to begin with. If the genuine product is available for sale elsewhere for less, I as a consumer should be able to purchase it at that discounted price. If Amazon is strong-arming manufacturers by sourcing genuine grey market products, that's a good thing for consumers and we should support Amazon. If Amazon is strong-arming manufacturers by sourcing counterfeit products, that's bad for consumers and we should not support Amazon.
  - c2h5oh 7y ago
    What if Amazon wasn't going to look too closely if the gray market stuff is counterfeit or not?
    - 7y ago

blt 7y ago

I stopped buying anything expensive and simple to manufacture from Amazon. I now only use it for things where I want the no-name version anyway, like RGB LED strips and curtains. Essentially treat it like AliExpress with fast shipping.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

It's not unique to Amazon. My company did a deal with a F50 retailer that you've shopped at. About a month ahead of the first deliverable which was agreed to in the statement of work, one of their VPs called me and screamed at me demanding a live demo or they would cancel any further payments on the contract. Oh and stay on the original delivery timeframe. We were small enough that we couldn't afford to fight that in court and losing that client would have been the loss of our biggest deal and a huge negative signal. So we made it work but it just proved to me that contracts without the ability to enforce them don't mean anything.

someonehere 7y ago

I discovered that when you receive a random Amazon package sent to your home, it’s a scam for the product. From what I’ve read and been told by people, it’s a seller from Amazon shipping you their product using a gift card. They create an account using your info (not sure how they get it, maybe public info web sites), ship you their product and pay for it with a gift card. They then create a review of the product you received as you. It’s then considered a verified buyer of the product. So it’s essentially buying reviews. It’s happened to a few of my friends.

wufufufu 7y ago

Everyone keeps talking about cheap Chinese clones but I don’t know what they’re talking about. Are you talking about generic products that have a Chinese sounding brand name?

plandis 7y ago

I’m a bit skeptical of this for a few reasons. If Amazon is in breach of contract then why is PopSockets not taking them to court? What is the gray market in this case? Buying a product similar from a different company? That just seems like a smart business tactic, IMO

speedplane 7y ago
> I’m a bit skeptical of this for a few reasons. If Amazon is in breach of contract then why is PopSockets not taking them to court? What is the gray market in this case? Buying a product similar from a different company? That just seems like a smart business tactic, IMO The "gray market" indicate cheap knock-offs of new products. For example, literally days after Tile released their bluetooth powered device locators, you could find cheaper knock-offs from China. These products may very well infringe Tile's patents and trademarks, but proving infringement in court takes years and costs millions of dollars. Even if you win, during that time many other knock-off manufacturers will pop up and you'll have to start all over. At that point your company will be dead. Intellectual property litigation is simply not strong enough to protect smaller companies. So a threat to go to the gray market from Amazon, can effectively spell the doom for your company. As an aside, while this is a problem for small companies, larger companies can usually afford to wage these large IP litigation campaigns. A good example is Bosch which sells patented windshield wiper blades. There are numerous knock-offs from China, but Bosch goes to war with each and every one. Eventually, Bosch starts earning a reputation and the knock-offs slow down. But this takes many years of heavy investment in IP enforcement and never entirely goes away. It only makes sense at very large scales, no small company could take on this burden.