French cosmetics firm L'Oreal has sued eBay over the sales of counterfeit versions of its perfumes and other cosmetics products on the site.
The company said it had contacted eBay to deal with the issue, but has not been satisfied by its response. Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior both filed similar lawsuits against the auction giant last year.
eBay has some measures in place to combat the sale of fake goods - the VeRO system allows trademark owners to inform the site of suspected fakes, which are then removed from the site.
Many trademark/copyright owners are not convinced this is enough to deal with the problem though, and would like eBay to be more pro-active.
Also, the fact the eBay takes commission from every sale on the site, fake or not, leads some to suspect that it isn''t too interested in clearing up the problem.
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Graham Charlton is Editor at Econsultancy. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin or Google+.
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4:01PM on 10th September 2007
Ebay is so huge that it would be almost impossible for them to manage a system which would prevent fake items being sold. It is one of the most off-putting aspects of purchasing from ebay, so the more action taken the better (from a consumer perspective)!
1:01PM on 11th September 2007
EBay consistently ignores reports of traders listing counterfeit items. It also ignores reports of traders using multiple alias IDs to sell fake goods. There are well documented examples of the same trader successfully operating on eBay for several months under different member IDs, and selling counterfeit items despite the fact that the activity has been reported to eBay's Trust & Safety Department.
Personally, I think that eBay should be fined heavily when it can be proven that they knew (or had good reason to suspect) that counterfeit items were being sold, and they failed to take effective action by suspending the seller accounts pending investigation.
2:47PM on 11th September 2007
"A few bad apples" or "We already have taken all the appropriate measures we can take" can not remain the only answers received by eBay on the subject.
The fact is that they are not willing and do not know how to deal with this issue. Their size has nothing to do with their willingness. Drug trafficking is also a huge issue, would the size for this market be a valid excuse for law enforcement to do nothing about it?
They profit directly from counterfeiting with each sale of such merchandise made through eBay. Richard's comment is right on.