Snapdeal and Amazon on Friday protested against their inclusion in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) list of ‘notorious markets’ that sell counterfeit and pirated products. Snapdeal, a bunch of Amazon’s foreign domains, including Amazon India, and four Indian shopping complexes figured in the US' 2020 edition of the Notorious Markets List for counterfeiting and piracy.
“...anyone can become a seller on Amazon with too much ease because Amazon does not sufficiently vet sellers on its platforms. They also commented that Amazon’s counterfeit removal processes can be lengthy and burdensome, even for right holders that enroll in Amazon’s brand protection programs,” the report said about Amazon.
The USTR has said that Snapdeal is known as a place to purchase counterfeit watches and shoes.
“According to a November 2018 survey, 37% of its customers reported that they had received a counterfeit product from Snapdeal. In July 2019, Snapdeal’s founders were arrested for selling counterfeit products. Right holders have also sued Snapdeal for selling counterfeit goods,” the report said.
Reacting strongly to the report, Snapdeal and Amazon India have both rejected the report’s findings. In a statement, Snapdeal said that the comments made by the report are “factually incorrect in most aspects, are based on unverified inputs and are defamatory in nature.”
“The report is based on a limited understanding of the business models of online marketplaces and ignores the roles and responsibilities of intermediaries under law in various jurisdictions with respect to each of the models. Further, the process of collating such inputs by the office of the USTR is neither objective nor inclusive,” the statement said.
Snapdeal added that it firmly disagrees with the “findings” of the report and specifically in its observations about the company. The company said that it operates a robust anti-counterfeit program to make reporting of counterfeit products and to verify identity of sellers based on government registrations.
“Snapdeal works closely with global and leading Indian brands and with law enforcement authorities to provide information wherever required to support any effort to enforce the legal rights of the brand owners. Snapdeal is also an active member of the International Trademark Association, a global alliance spanning 7200 members across 187 countries, including large brand owners, small & medium enterprises, government offices, non-profits, among others,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Amazon released a statement saying that the company “strongly disagrees” with the characterization of Amazon in the USTR report and called it a “purely political act”. Several of Amazon’s domains, including amazon.ca, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr, and amazon.in, were flagged in the report.
“This purely political act is another example of the Administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon. Amazon makes significant investments in proactive technologies and processes to detect and stop bad actors and potentially counterfeit products from being sold in our stores,” Amazon said in the statement.
The company added that in 2019, it invested over $500 million and has more than 8,000 employees protecting our store from fraud and abuse.
“We also stopped over 2.5 million suspected bad actors from opening Amazon selling accounts before they published a single listing for sale, blocking more than 6 billion suspected bad listings before they were published to our stores. We have developed industry-leading programs like Project Zero, Transparency, and Brand Registry for brands to partner with us and together, drive counterfeits to zero,” the company said.
It added that more than 99.9% of pages viewed by customers on Amazon have never had a report of counterfeit, and that this is a testament to their commitment to fighting counterfeit products.
“We also work closely with law enforcement agencies and are reporting all confirmed counterfeiters to help them build stronger criminal cases. We are an active, engaged stakeholder in the fight against counterfeit, and we call on lawmakers to increase funding and resources for law enforcement agencies so we can hold the real criminals accountable—the current ramifications for tricking consumers are too weak,” the statement added.
Other than Snapdeal and Amazon, the four markets are Tank Road in Delhi, Heera Panna in Mumbai, Kidderpore in Kolkata and Millennium Centre in Aizawl.
In all, the US Trade Representatives' (USTR) annual list has 38 online markets and 34 physical markets that are reported to engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy.
In its report, the USTR said these “harm” the American economy by undermining the innovation and intellectual property rights of the US IP owners.
The review does not constitute an exhaustive list of all markets reported to deal in pirated or counterfeit goods around the world, nor does it reflect findings of legal violations or the US government's analysis of the general IP protection and enforcement climate in the country concerned, the USTR said.