[kube-system]

Because they don't "knowingly sell counterfeit goods". Amazon employees don't create these listings, other people do.

Someone that "knowingly sells counterfeit goods" is humanly aware that a specific item they are selling is counterfeit, and decide to sell it anyway, which is not the case here.

These listings are taken down whack-a-mole style as Amazon is made humanly aware of their existence.

[JKCalhoun]

Sounds like Amazon should vet the items before allowing them be listed.

Strange how easy it is to brush off accountability and still make a profit off of illegalities.

[kube-system]

That is a fair position. I was commenting on how "knowingly" works.

[Regnore]

Does Amazon do literally anything to pro-actively prevent the selling of counterfeit goods?

> Prior to the deal, Apple sent “hundreds of thousands of take-down notices” to Amazon to reduce counterfeits, and the company conducted test purchases on Amazon that “consistently returned high counterfeit rates

[TheCowboy]

It has become increasingly difficult to operate as a 3rd party seller on their platform. A lot of categories and items are "gated" requiring a lot of additional approval or limited access that's difficult to come by.

For example, there are books I purchased off of Amazon, directly from Amazon as new books, that I am not allowed to sell as used on their site. This wasn't always the case.

[dbcurtis]

Have you ever gotten counterfeit Amazon Basics products? I thought not. Amazon could shut this down of they actually cared.

[paulryanrogers]

I'd argue commingling inventory "Fulfilled by Amazon" is tacitly endorsing counterfeiting.

[kube-system]

They have anti-counterfeit teams, brand protection programs, etc. They say their brand protection is about 99% effective at blocking counterfeits. But, they have something like 350+ million listings, so there's still tons of stuff that makes it through the cracks.

Fraudulent listings aren't specifically an Amazon problem, there's junk like the above example on basically every marketplace site. Search "2tb flash drive" on any of them. It's a fundamental problem with non-curated marketplaces.

[bmitc]

That sounds like using scale as an excuse.

[StopHammoTime]

The law is the problem.

The law requires explicit knowledge, so Amazon can get away with it.

I don’t agree with it, but lawmakers should be making these changes.

[pbhjpbhj]

AFAIK, trademark law does not require explicit knowledge, if you sell an item with a trademark and just don't care whether it came from the mark owner then you're still infringing if it didn't.

So, all those dodgy USB drives that are branded are infringing.

In the UK these are "counterfeit" and illegal to sell (not just tortuous, criminal).

I'm surprised if the USA code doesn't make these actions criminal and leaves them only as civil matters given how much the state choose to consider copyright as a criminal action?

[bmitc]

I mean, if I had repeated instances of someone else performing illegal activities in my basement, I can't continually, or even once, claim that I had no idea. Amazon knows it has counterfeit problems and does nothing to curb it. In fact, they encourage it. Just because it's hidden behind several layers of software abstraction does not mean that Amazon doesn't have explicit knowledge. These products even physically sit in their own warehouses.

[kube-system]

Knowing about the existence of crime in a general sense is not legally or functionally the same as knowing about or being directly involved with a specific instance of crime.

> I mean, if I had repeated instances of someone else performing illegal activities in my basement, I can't continually, or even once, claim that I had no idea.

Amazon does not claim that they are unaware of counterfeit products on their platform. They do explicitly say they are aware of fraudulent products on their platform, and they have blogs on their website that talk about this.

> Just because it's hidden behind several layers of software abstraction does not mean that Amazon doesn't have explicit knowledge.

They are generally aware that marketplace sellers list fraudulent products. They are not specifically aware that any particular new listing is fraudulent until after the fact.

> These products even physically sit in their own warehouses.

Sometimes they do, but not all of the time. However, putting the item in a warehouse does nothing to authenticate it.

[bmitc]

> They are not specifically aware that any particular new listing is fraudulent until after the fact.

> However, putting the item in a warehouse does nothing to authenticate it.

Those are both Amazon's problems and not customers' or the law's problems. Here's an idea: if you are constantly ingesting fraudulent products in your warehouses and shopping site, maybe do something about it?

[kube-system]

They do do "something" about it.

[pbhjpbhj]

Fwiw, in the UK it didn't matter if you know goods are counterfeit or not, if they are trademark infringing then they get seized.

Things are not working if consumers don't know what they're buying and government departments devoted to enforcing correct information in the market are doing nothing about it.

[vuln]

Try that argument with the Silk Road. Has Apple or Amazon hired or solicited hitmen? Probably.

[kube-system]

There's no inconsistency here. Silk Road knowingly and intentionally sold illegal goods and services.