I had always been curious about this. And I apologize for the girly post, but it caught my attention. And I’m sure lots of you can benefit off it, since it can apply to brands other than the ones discussed below.
LVMH, easily recognized as Louis Vuitton to some of us girls, has just ordered eBay to pay a cool 38.6 million euros for counterfeiting LVMH goods on the Internet. Ouch!
LVMH, the topnotch, first-class French makers of leather goods claimed in court that 90% of all Louis Vuitton/Dior products sold online through eBay are fakes. Even though eBay reps claim that the minute they see fake items, they turn them down immediately, they also claim that “It’s about an attempt by LVMH to protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day. We will fight this ruling on their behalf.”
Previous to this, another luxury goods designer brand, Hermes, sued eBay for 20,000 euros for selling fake handbags. In the end, the court banned eBay from running any ads or banners for LVMH’s (and sister companies) perfumes or handbags under any condition or will be faced with a 50,000 euro fine per day.
Even Google has been ‘threatened’ by the big French brands as they have asked the search engine to remove all ads from counterfeiters whose spots come out when Louis Vuitton, Dior, etc. are search queried.
It’s only natural these world renowned, wanted-by-all brands hang so tightly to protect their name and image. eBay will have to become more strict from now on and request auctioneers to publish more than just simple (at times, even lame) product pictures; serial numbers and certificate proofs would be nice too.