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Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#11

Post by magnetic »

CharlesColeman wrote: post #3

So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…

> So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded.

How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what?

A brand brings this value: expectations.

If I buy a no-brand item, I'm not sure what expectations I can have, and I'm not sure I can even claim that it's a fake, since I have no reference point as "the true item".

I mean that's literally the biggest value that a brand brings to you, the consumer.

That's also why brands work hard to build up and maintain good reputations.

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#13

Post by [deleted] »

magnetic wrote: post #11
CharlesColeman wrote: post #3

So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…

> So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded. How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what? A brand brings this value: expectations. If I buy a no-brand item, I'm not sure what expectations I can have, and I'm not sure I can even claim that it's a fake, since I have no reference point as "the true item". I mean that's literally the biggest value that a b…

[deleted]

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#14

Post by tyingq »

ctvo wrote: post #9
tyingq wrote: post #4

Surprised it took this long. I'm curious if the implementation is right, in both directions. You want to cede enough power to kill counterfeits, but not enough to kill workalike products, secondary market sellers like those that buy genuine merchandise from, say, unsold WalMart stock, etc.

You're surprised it took this long, then outline some of the harder issues that would make it take a long time to implement correctly. Not only that, but those are policy / design issues. The technical implementation of this at Amazon scale isn't trivial, then adding in fraud detection so folks don't abuse it too. The assumption that Amazon doesn't care about this problem, the fake reviews problem and others killing…

Amazon FBA, which made this problem much harder, was launched in 2006. I don't feel like "took this long" is unreasonable.

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#15

Post by iwalton3 »

magnetic wrote: post #11
CharlesColeman wrote: post #3

So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…

> So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded. How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what? A brand brings this value: expectations. If I buy a no-brand item, I'm not sure what expectations I can have, and I'm not sure I can even claim that it's a fake, since I have no reference point as "the true item". I mean that's literally the biggest value that a b…

A fake SD card is one that doesn't store all the data it claims to. There are SD cards on Amazon that claim to store 64 GB (or whatever), but they really store a fraction of that, with firmware that lies to the user and corrupts the data they try to store beyond the actual capacity.

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#16

Post by CharlesColeman »

magnetic wrote: post #11
CharlesColeman wrote: post #3

So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded, but are still faker than fake. IMHO, it's not a good compromise to push the responsibility for fake-detection onto brands and manufacturers. Small makers might not have the resources to effectively police Amazon's massive inventory , and some brands might abuse this power to squash smaller competitors. It's really Amazon's job to…

> So, how will this help with things like fake SD cards? Those are usually sold unbranded. How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what? A brand brings this value: expectations. If I buy a no-brand item, I'm not sure what expectations I can have, and I'm not sure I can even claim that it's a fake, since I have no reference point as "the true item". I mean that's literally the biggest value that a b…

> How can an unbranded SD card be fake? Fake with respect to what?

In respect to not being the claimed capacity, but modified in a data-destroying way to make that difficult to detect:

https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326059# (from 2015, capacities have obviously changed since then):

> Tests by the Counterfeit Report found that the cards will work at first, but generally speaking, buyers are purchasing what they think are cards with capacities of 32GB and up. Instead they are getting are cards with 7GB capacity. Counterfeiters simply overwrite the real memory capacity with a false capacity to match any capacity and model they print on the counterfeit packaging and card, Crosby explained. Users can’t determine the actual memory capacity of a counterfeit memory card by simply plugging it into their computer, phone, or camera. When the user hits the limit, the phony card starts overwriting files, which leads to lost data.

> The Counterfeit Report often comes across cards in capacities that don’t exist in any product line, and the cards it purchases and tests that are 32GB and up are usually always fake. The counterfeiters make a great profit on the fake cards, and there’s no consequence.

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#18

Post by Raphmedia »

About time. I've ordered quite a few skincare & haircare products that were obliviously refilled with random things. Shampoos that smells like pool cleaner, etc.

I used to always order everything from Amazon. Now I've reached a point where I avoid it.

What's annoying is that the fakes and the reals have the same listings and share the same reviews. So you glance at the reviews and see mostly 5 stars... only to notice that all recent ones are 1 star written by people who received fakes.

Ex: https://www.amazon.com/Joico-111772-K-pak-Conditioner-33-8-o...

Re: Amazon to give power to brands to remove fakes from website

#20

Post by gvand »

But who will remove the other non-brand fakes? Just yesterday i noticed a 1Tb micro-sd for only $20 instead of the usual $60 for other fake 1Tb cards... I would have flagged the product. If only Amazon had that function.

All these fake items could destroy Amazon's credibility pretty fast...

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