Online Searches Often Lead Customers to Counterfeit Goods.
Counterfeit items have been a problem for some of the internet’s biggest retailers for a while now. During their analysis, researchers said, they learned about the proliferation of counterfeit goods simply by conducting searches.
According to the survey, 60% of Google’s first-page results for a brand name antibiotic called Bactrim led to websites that researchers believe were “very likely to be operating unlawfully.” While the biggest concern about counterfeit drugs (and the websites selling them) are potential health issues that could result from taking counterfeit medication, researchers also discovered that these sites could be hacked, leading to potentially dangerous consequences for a person’s private data.
The problems didn’t stop there, either. Researchers found that when they searched for a “Comotomo teether,” nearly one-third of all results featured “potentially harmful products.” Consumers searching for new “white goods,” or common appliances like refrigerators and washing machines, were regularly sent to a website selling counterfeit products.
While the issue has become widespread on some of the world’s top search engines, researchers said there’s currently very little legal recourse.
Through the study, researchers questioned how such situations could exist on major search engines like Google, which facilitates roughly 3.5 billion searches every day.
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15311-online-searches-counterfeit-goods.html
Related Posts
Kirton man sentenced after being caught with 25kg of illicit tobacco
A Kirton man, caught with almost 25kg of illicit hand-rolling tobacco (HRT) in...
Operation Team Player nets more than $25,000 worth of fake goods
The 2015 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic netted a win not only for the Washington...
Passenger arrested with foreign cigarettes worth Rs. 2.1m at BIA
Police Narcotics Bureau (PNB) officers at the Bandaranaike International...
BSF Meghalaya foils smuggling attempts, confiscates Rs 11 lakh worth of items
Shillong (Meghalaya) , November 27 (ANI): The Border Security Force (BSF)...