Brand
Protection Report
Amazon’s Commitment to Brand Protection
Amazon strives to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where people can find and discover the widest possible selection of authentic goods. Today, we have more than 300 million active customer accounts and over 1.9 million selling partners worldwide. Many of these selling partners are small and medium-sized businesses, and they represent the majority of physical products sold in our stores. We are proud to help these small businesses thrive and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in their local communities. We work hard to earn and maintain customer trust, and strictly prohibit the sale of counterfeit products. We constantly innovate to detect and prevent counterfeit products from reaching our customers.
We are proud to share some of the latest innovations, data points, and collaborations to highlight our progress in protecting brands, customers, and sellers in our stores.
Our latest innovations
Holding Counterfeiters Accountable
In 2020, we established an in-house investigation and prosecution team, the Counterfeit Crimes Unit. They are a global team dedicated to holding bad actors accountable. The team is focused on building and referring cases to law enforcement, undertaking independent investigations or joint investigations with brands, and pursuing civil litigation against bad actors. Through close collaboration with brands, many of the Counterfeit Crimes Unit’s lawsuits were filed jointly with brands, including household names like 3M, YETI; U.K. cosmetics brand KF Beauty; Italian luxury brands like Maison Valentino and Ferragamo; and small businesses like JL Childress, which sells travel products for parents, and Dutch Blitz, a family-owned card game manufacturer.
Helping Small Businesses Secure IP Rights
Amazon designed IP Accelerator specifically with small and medium businesses in mind, making it easier and more cost effective for them to protect their unique products and intellectual property (IP). IP Accelerator connects entrepreneurs with a curated network of law firms that specialize in IP. Amazon vetted each of the participating law firms for experience, expertise, and customer service, and all have agreed to competitive, pre-negotiated rates. When entrepreneurs use these law firms to file a trademark application, Amazon will provide their brand with early access to Brand Registry.
Enhancing Robust Proactive Controls
Amazon has built industry-leading tools to verify potential sellers’ identities using a combination of algorithms, machine learning technology, and expert human review. Prospective selling partners are required to provide a government-issued photo ID and information about their identity, location, taxpayer information, bank account, credit card, and more. Our proprietary systems analyse hundreds of unique data points to verify the information and detect potential risk. Our verification processes stopped over 6 million attempts to create a selling account before they were able to publish a single listing for sale.
OVER
10 billion
suspected bad listings blocked by Brand Protection's robust verification processes before they were published to Amazon's stores.
OVER
500,000
brands enrolled worldwide in Brand Registry.
The Global Impact of Brand Protection
Brand Registry launched in 2017 and has expanded globally into the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Singapore, Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. We continuously innovate and expand to new markets to better serve our brands. In 2020, we hit a number of milestones due in part to the over 10,000 Amazon employees that help protect our stores across the world.
OVER
500 million
product units were serialized by brands and manufacturers with unique Transparency codes.
OVER
18,000
brands have enrolled in Project Zero.
OVER
7,000
small and medium-sized businesses were connected to trusted law firms in the U.S. and Europe, successfully submitted trademark applications, and received early access to Brand Registry’s brand protection tools.
OVER
2 million
counterfeit products seized before being sent to a customer.
Cross-industry partnerships to stop counterfeits
Amazon works directly with brands and in partnership with leading industry associations to get feedback that allows us to continue to improve our programs, share our best practices to help others be more successful, identify trends, pilot new capabilities, and ultimately better protect customers and brands. In 2020, we have memoranda of understandings with:
- Confindustria Moda
- Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
- European Commission
- Imaging Supplies Coalition (ISC)
- Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association
- International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
- Italian Anti-Counterfeiting Association (INDICAM)
- Michigan State University’s Center for Anti-Counterfeiting and Product Protection (A-CAPP)
We are excited to see that Project Zero is expanding into new marketplaces. The program has already had a very positive impact on our enforcement and we are glad to see Amazon’s continued commitment to protecting our brand across the world.
LG sees Transparency as a great way to ensure that consumers use
genuine LG filters while protecting them from counterfeit products.
One of the biggest benefits of Amazon’s IP Accelerator is the additional security it provides businesses like ours in terms of stopping potential counterfeiters.
Enroll your brand today
Get started with Brand Registry
Learn about the eligibility requirements and how you can begin enrollment.
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