With the Holiday Shopping Season Comes Crackdowns on Counterfeit Goods

Cyber Monday is an opportunity for legitimate online merchants to capitalize on the holiday shopping season—but it’s also a time when a slew of websites look to sell consumers counterfeit goods. Online and offline scammers sell about $250 billion of fake brand name items annually in the US alone, with the design and fashion industries particularly hard hit.  This past Cyber Monday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worked together with European and Hong Kong authorities to seize some 700 websites, 297 of them based in the US, that were selling counterfeit goods. It is the fourth year that such sites have been targeted on Cyber Monday. ICE Acting Director John Sandweg said, “Working with our international partners on operations like this shows the true global impact of IP [Intellectual Property] crime,” in a press release. “Counterfeiters take advantage of the holiday season and sell cheap fakes to unsuspecting consumers everywhere. Consumers need to protect themselves, their families, and their personal financial information from the criminal networks operating these bogus sites.”

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