Amazon Added To The U.S. Government's Notorious Markets Blacklist

Research exposes a shocking pattern of corporate behavior

April 30, 2020, Los Angeles, CA – Amazon's reprehensible behavior has landed it on the U.S. Trade Representative's "Notorious Markets List." The government list is reserved for the worst online markets and offenders that enable and facilitate the world's largest criminal enterprise; counterfeit product sales, copyright piracy, and trademark infringement.

Amazon operates an organized, invasive, and manipulative global system of fraud, deception, misrepresentation, data leaks and the advertising, sale, distribution, and delivery of counterfeit and fraudulent goods. Amazon has earned global scrutiny and investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office ("GAO"), EU anti-trust regulators, and is facing an investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission ("FTC"). Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has asked the Department of Justice to open a criminal anti-trust investigation into Amazon.

Peter K. Navarro, Ph.D., White House trade advisor to the President, issued a succinct and harsh condemnation, "When you purchase brand-name goods through online third-party marketplaces like Alibaba, Amazon, and eBay, there's a good chance you'll end up with a counterfeit."

Dharmesh M. Mehta, VP of Worldwide Customer Trust and Partner Support, appeared before the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce on March 4, 2020. Mehta is responsible for preventing fraud, counterfeits, fake reviews, and other forms of abuse from harming Amazon customers, brands, and selling partners. Mehta offered shocking confirmation of Amazon's manipulative business practices and global system of counterfeits, fraud, product commingling, deception, misrepresentation, and false advertising.

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline said Amazon’s associate general counsel, Nate Sutton (a Bush and then Obama DOJ Antitrust attorney before leaving for Amazon in Dec. 2016) “may have lied to Congress” at a hearing last year about how the company uses data from its third-party sellers to come up with its private-label products. "At worst, the witness Amazon sent to speak on its behalf may have lied to Congress.”

Amazon claims it invested $500 million in 2019 to fight fraud and abuse -- that's less than 4 cents for every profit dollar Amazon earns. Amazon's reports reveal they receive an infringement notice for 1 of every 100 customer page views, and 200,000 brands have signed in to fight counterfeits on Amazon -- a shocking revelation of the enormity of Amazon's counterfeit problem.

Brand-owners tell an alarming story, the alleged safe-haven for bad-actors and high levels of counterfeit goods on the targeted e-commerce platforms, amazon.ca in Canada, amazon.de in Germany, amazon.fr in France, amazon.in in India, and amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom.

The Counterfeit Report, a global award-winning consumer advocate and counterfeit watchdog, found over 264,800 fake, fraudulent, and replica items on Amazon. Research identifies Amazon as both a direct seller of counterfeits while also enabling unvetted third-party sellers to list and sell just about anything they want; counterfeit, replica, and fraudulent merchandise, books, OTC drugs, and expired food items. Even if consumers wisely avoid Amazon, they are still at risk of injury or death from other shopper's counterfeit and fraudulent product purchases. Amazon rejected 3,500 counterfeit complaints, leaving the trademarked inarguable counterfeit products on foreign Amazon websites.

Amazon Corporate Counsel, Annasara Purcell, responded with a statement that each counterfeit claim requires that a trademark be registered in each jurisdiction the infringing product is sold, irrespective of the fact that the bulk of counterfeit items are shipped from or sold by China sellers. View the case study.

However, trademark registration is not a legal requirement for trademark infringement, enforcement, or removal. Amazon's claim is simply a brazen attempt to avoid doing the right thing; aggressive and persistent action to remove counterfeit merchandise from its websites. Amazon takes a transaction fee for each item sold, collecting $11.2 billion in profit in 2018 and $5.6 billion in 2017, but paid no federal income taxes.

Amazon's addition to the Notorious Markets List is warranted and long overdue. Additional legislative and judicial intervention is required for Amazon's indifference to the damage they cause to consumers, legitimate sellers, and manufacturers.