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Auction Forum Index » Auction News » eBay - L'Oreal sues over counterfeit goods
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eBay - L'Oreal sues over counterfeit goods 
Post: #1   PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:49 am Reply with quote
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eBay is being sued across Europe by the world's biggest cosmetics firm for not trying hard enough to battle counterfeiting. L'Oreal is taking the action in five European countries, including the UK.

The cosmetics giant claims that eBay is profiting from the sale of counterfeit goods and is not doing enough to combat fakes. eBay has argued in the past that it always acts in such cases when notified of the sale of counterfeits.

Quote: eBay is not a victim because it gets a cut from each transaction and advertisement, real or fake," said L'Oreal's head of anti-counterfeiting, Xavier Herfroy, according to French newspaper Liberation. The paper said that L'Oreal had estimated the cost to the company of the sale of counterfeit goods ran into millions of euros. [ Read Full Article ]

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Post: #2   PostPosted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 9:49 pm Reply with quote
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Picking my words carefully, as I don't want to get sued by anyone, I have some sympathy with L'Oreal. It seems to me that too many sites hide behind the "we're just a venue" line, but when it comes to dictating to sellers what things they can and cannot do, such as whether they can offer Google Check-out, it's a different matter. But if it's just a venue, what business is it of the site owner as to what payment methods a seller accepts?

Seeing how some sites are littered with fakes (DVD's; designer bags etc etc) it's understandable that some brand owners are saying enough is enough. After all, if a site can employ sophisticated software (or maybe it doesn't have to be sophisticated) to sniff out sellers doing things it doesn't approve of, then why can't it sniff out fake goods as easily. Some adverts I've seen on various sites have been quite blatent, talking about quality replicas, an "interpretation" of a named brand item etc etc.

So it will be interesting to see what the courts say. UK legislation is pretty good on protecting purchasers so my money will be on L'Oreal being the winner in the UK action!
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Post: #3   PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 10:43 am Reply with quote
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Hi Enthusiast & welcome on-board!!

Must be a massive undertaking though for a company such as eBay to
determine what is fake and what is not. I would imagine that eBid and
all the other sites will have to follow this closely.

Cheers

Steve
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Post: #4   PostPosted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 2:52 pm Reply with quote
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Hi Steve

I'm not so sure it is a massive undertaking for eBay & co to sniff out fakes. I say that because they are quite good at sniffing out the things they are really concerned about, such as in the case of eBay, Google Checkout etc. That being so, I don't see why their software can't be programmed to spotlight listings with the word "replica" or "interpretation" in them. At least that would show willing. My own experience, and that of many others, is that reporting items to eBay and certain other sites seems to have little effect. I guess it's that attitude that L'Oreal & others wish to challenge.

The bottom line, of course, is that every fake sold on an auction site still brings in a profit for the site and that must provide a temptation for some to turn the proverbial blind eye.

As you say, other sites such as eBid will have to watch what is happening. But my own impression is that eBid is better than many when it comes to this problem. At least one of the sites that you have given their own area to on this forum, is absolutely riddled with fakes (and it's not eBay or eBid). And another of them had a similar situation (particularly with fake software copies) but seems to have cleaned up its act recently (to some degree).

That this doesn't have to be the norm is shown by those sites who do make real attempts to throw the fakes off their sites and I would cite SpecialistAuctions as a shining example in this, aided by its system of pro-active category moderators. Even little sites such as IWAC show smaller sites can do it too. Tazbar makes a good attempt too but is a bit sluggish in responding to reports at times.

I think it's a really serious issue. I don't want to buy a fake anything though I recognise there are those who do if they can get something cheap.
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Post: #5   PostPosted: Sat Sep 15, 2007 11:45 am Reply with quote
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The problem with using software to pick out the fakes is that you are
only going to stop those that were admitting that the items were replicas
etc. I would guess that there are more that are trying to pass fakes off
as genuine and therefore they wouldn't mention anything like that it in
their listings (this is what I meant by being difficult to police). I know the
software suggestion would at least show willing but had thought that
eBay had recently done something similar??

It is also good to hear that others are starting to look at this issue
more closely but the big difference is scale - what can work on a smaller
site may not as easily be replicated (pardon the pun) on an extremely
large one.

Cheers

Steve
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eBay - L'Oreal sues over counterfeit goods 
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