Amazon Unveils Program to Combat Counterfeiters in Retail
(Image Source: Christian Wiediger/ Unsplash)
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) recently announced the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange (ACX), an alliance among businesses to make online shopping more secure and prevent counterfeiters from easily moving between retail outlets to sell their products.
With ACX, participating stores are able to communicate with each other about counterfeiters who have tried to exploit their services to sell fake goods. Thanks to this exchange of information, it is now possible to detect and stop counterfeiters more rapidly than ever before. An independent third party facilitates the sharing and receipt of information among participants in a manner that conforms to industry standards and best practices, while ensuring anonymity through appropriate measures.
Amazon's ACX system has already uncovered hundreds of accounts that are similar, suggesting that the same counterfeiter has tried to set up shops with Amazon and another retailer. The strength of ACX lies in the fact that once one store has apprehended a counterfeiter and shared the account information through the exchange, all other retailers that are members of ACX are aware of the counterfeiter and may arrest them even more swiftly in their store. Each ACX user decides for themselves whether or not to use the data provided by ACX.
“We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits," said Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President of Selling Partner Services at Amazon. "As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnership to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industry-wide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry’s collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing consumers and rights owners with greater peace of mind."
Amazon has collaborated with other ACX members to test out the exchange, set up safeguards, and figure out how to open it up to a wider group of organizations with an interest in combating counterfeiters. To further boost the industry's collaborative efforts against counterfeiters, Amazon encourages other retailers and marketplace service providers to join the Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange and work with the founding members.
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