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View Full Version : The U.S. Government Shuts Several Online Merchants Selling Fake Products



FraudNews
07-16-2012, 07:45 AM
The U.S. government has shut down seventy online merchants that have been scamming consumers. They were selling counterfeit goods of various brands. The relevant domains are therefore seized.

According to the government, the operation was part of Project Copy Cat and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement among others in an attempt to detect retailers who violate trademark laws. The authorities made undercover purchases from seventy merchants and the trademark holders confirmed that the products were counterfeit.

The suspected merchants shipped their products from outside the United States, but it is not known which countries were involved. According to the authorities SSL certificates were used to give consumers the idea that they communicated with reliable online stores that deliver branded products. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials stated that most customers to the online stores had a very difficult time to distinguish the difference between the real shops and the online shops selling counterfeit items.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, is a task force created several years ago. They tackle problems that involve piracy or other forms of copyright infringement.

Although skeptics may argue that the contested measure could have little effect, because they see these sites often spring back to life with a different URL, the current steps taken by authorities are to be lauded. In the past two years, the authorities seized 839 domain names because of the In Our Sites project.