Mumbai: Amazon says that in 2023 it invested more than $1.2 billion and employed more than 15,000 people—including machine learning scientists, software developers, and expert investigators—who were dedicated to protecting customers, brands, selling partners, and store from counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse.
Its brand protection strategy continues to focus on four key areas: 1) Proactive efforts to protect the store, 2) Tools that enable rights owners to partner with the company to better protect their brands, 3) advances in holding bad actors accountable, and 4) improved customer protection and education. This has been a journey over many years, and the company said that it has continued to find success in stopping counterfeits.
The company added that nearly three decades ago, it set out to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where people can discover and purchase the widest possible selection of safe and authentic goods. When a customer makes a purchase in our store, they trust they will receive an authentic product, whether the item is sold by Amazon Retail or by one of millions of independent sellers. And when businesses choose to sell in store, they trust that the companye will provide a great selling experience free from competition with bad actors. It said that it understands that customer trust is difficult to earn and easy to lose, which is why trust is at the foundation of the relationships it builds and the innovations it makes on behalf of our customers and selling partners.
Here are a few highlights from the 2023 Brand Protection Report:
1. Innovations in seller vetting it claims are deterring bad actors from attempting to create new selling accounts. Its robust seller verification it explains uses document forgery detection, advanced image and video verification, and other technologies to quickly confirm the authenticity of government-issued identity documents and whether they match the individual applying to sell in the store. These technologies, coupled with continued innovation in our machine learning-based detection, are deterring bad actors from attempting to create new Amazon selling accounts. In 2023, Amazon stopped more than 700,000 bad-actor attempts to create new selling accounts, stopping them before they were able to list a single product for sale in the store.
2. While the number of products available for sale in the store continued to grow, the number of valid notices of infringement submitted by brands decreased. It said that it continues to innovate and improve our automated brand protections, which leverage the latest advances in artificial intelligence to stay ahead of new and emerging bad-actor tactics. These advanced machine learning models use thousands of signals, including data provided by brands enrolled in Brand Registry, to protect customers and brands.
In 2023, its team used advanced machine learning models, including advances in computer vision and large language models, to systematically detect many different types of infringement, including improving the ability to accurately detect complex visual intellectual-property infringements of logos, shapes, and patterns. These advances allow the company to handle complex repetitive tasks efficiently and with precision at scale. Since 2020, while the number of products available for sale in the store has grown, it has seen a more than 30% decrease in the total valid notices of infringement submitted by brands claims the company.
3. Working in partnership with brands and law enforcement around the world, we continue to successfully hold more bad actors accountable—stopping them from abusing our and other retailers’ stores. Our efforts to identify and dismantle counterfeit organizations are working and having a positive, global impact. Since its launch in 2020, Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit has pursued more than 21,000 bad actors through litigation and criminal referrals to law enforcement. In 2023, it identified, seized, and appropriately disposed of more than seven million counterfeit products worldwide, preventing them from harming customers or being resold elsewhere in the retail supply chain.
In addition to the disposal of counterfeit products, in 2023, Amazon strengthened its cross-border anti-counterfeiting collaboration with brands and Chinese law enforcement, which led to more than 50 successful raid actions with more than 100 bad actors identified and detained for questioning, many of whom are manufacturers, suppliers, or upstream distributors of counterfeit products. This collaboration resulted in numerous criminal convictions, including fines and prison sentences.
4. It is working with industry experts and associations to educate consumers on the danger of purchasing counterfeits. It added that it recognises the importance of educating consumers about the risks of counterfeit goods, and we continue to explore ways to do that. For example, in partnership with the International Trademark Association and DECA, Amazon launched the Unreal Campaign Challenge. The challenge asked students to produce a 60-second video that was a public service announcement about the dangers of purchasing counterfeits. The Unreal Campaign Challenge it said reached more than 177,000 global DECA members and the winners were recognised at DECA’s annual International Career Development Conference in front of 22,000 students.
