On Thursday, Amazon announced via a press release the introduction of its Anti-Counterfeiting Exchange or ACX program, which is aimed at helping retail stores to identify and monitor counterfeit items in the marketplace. This initiative is part of Amazon’s broader strategy to combat organized crime on its e-commerce platform.
For Amazon, one of its biggest challenges with regard to counterfeit products and its propagators is preventing those from accessing its platforms or entering its storage facilities in the US. To address this issue, the new program is designed to function similarly to data exchange initiatives established by the credit card industry to locate scammers and detect their methods. Retail stores and Amazon marketplace vendors can participate in the program by anonymously submitting information and documents that identify counterfeiters to a third-party database or utilizing the database to avoid conducting business with these fraudulent actors.
The ACX program has facilitated the consistent sharing of information, and its members utilize this data to identify and combat counterfeit activity, enhance their individual risk assessment frameworks, and submit more robust referrals to law enforcement to hold bad actors accountable. Amazon has already identified hundreds of matching accounts belonging to the same counterfeiters who attempted to establish selling accounts on Amazon and at least one other retail operator through ACX. The potency of ACX stems from the fact that once a participating store identifies a counterfeiter and shares their account details via the exchange, all other ACX members can become aware of the counterfeiters, enabling them to stop them in their tracks. Each participant has complete autonomy to determine whether and how to utilize the information obtained via ACX.
“We want our customers to have confidence in their shopping experience and for brands to know they are protected from counterfeits,” said Dharmesh Mehta, Amazon’s vice president of Selling Partner Services. “As we laid out in our blueprint for private and public sector partnership to stop counterfeiters, we think it is critical to share information about confirmed counterfeiters to help the entire industry stop these criminals earlier. By leading the way in creating an industry-wide solution to share information about known counterfeiters, we are excited to have helped improve the industry’s collective ability to fight counterfeit crime, providing consumers and rights owners with greater peace of mind.”
The retail giant tested the anti-counterfeiting program in 2021, collaborating with a confidential number of stores that primarily sell apparel, home goods, and cosmetics, Reuters reported. These categories are most vulnerable to counterfeiting. Amazon is also collaborating with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection on a data pilot aimed at helping the company detect and pinpoint low-value e-commerce shipments that may contain counterfeit items or infringe upon other regulations as part of its broader anti-counterfeiting endeavors.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
