Thursday, February 09, 2006

Software Knocks Off eBay Counterfeiters

Fake goods dealers have been having a field day on eBay, selling tens of thousands of illegal items on the popular portal. The company is battling a lawsuit from Tiffany & Company that alleges that eBay isn't doing enough to fight the trafficking of bogus bartering.

In addition to Tiffany's, Microsoft, sunglass maker Oakley, and many others say they have found thousands of illegal auctions.

MarkMonitor released software that identifies fraudulent items for sale on auction sites by tracking illegal use of logos, images and text. The Auction Monitoring system is a dashboard console that ranks the auctions that could most severely harm the true brands.

The company has worked with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to find illegal copies of DVD and videos floating around the web using software for scouring the general web, and this is their first application aimed at auction houses.

There is no bulletproof method of preventing the existence of gray and black markets online (just like there will always be click fraud) and offline, but the technology for preventing mass fraud must keep pace with the vehicles that simplify commerce. Companies that profit from illegal sales should be held accountable, and the courts will soon clear up the gray area of their responsibility.

By Jason Dowdell at 10:00 AM | Comments (0)

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