The Etsy website was once banned in Russia for selling counterfeit goods!

Earlier this month, Russia's communications, information technology and media supervision agency Roskomnadzor added the e-commerce website Etsy to its list of banned domains. This means that the Etsy website cannot be accessed in Russia.

The watchdog is understood to be enforcing a court order issued by Tambov in June 2019, which found that Etsy suppliers of Gucci knockoffs had violated intellectual property rights and called for restricting access to those pages.

However, when it came to actual implementation, Roskomnadzor stated that due to the traffic encryption technology used by the Etsy website, Roskomnadzor could only limit access to the "Gucci" page on Etsy, so it blocked the entire website.

Etsy also realized the seriousness of the matter and has deleted the infringing pages. Previously, searching for "Gucci" on Etsy would pop up a large number of replicas of Gucci brand clothing and accessories, including bags, brooches, belts , etc.

Roskomnadzor also lifted its block on Etsy on December 3 after seeing that flagged counterfeit products had been removed from the site.

It is not the first time that an e-commerce platform has been blocked. Just recently, Wish was punished by the French authorities for selling non-compliant products and "refusing to change after repeated warnings". It could not be searched on major search engines and mobile application stores operating in France.

As for infringement, five publishers recently filed a joint lawsuit in a US court, accusing Shopify of failing to delete listings and stores that infringed on publishers' trademarks and copyrights, and demanding more than $500 million in damages.

Judging from the recent "troubles" that Etsy, Wish and Shopify have gotten into, the core words are nothing more than "infringement" and "compliance".

In fact, many platforms, such as DHgate.com and AliExpress, also frequently issue relevant infringement warnings. For example, AliExpress recently issued an announcement on the warning and removal of LV's infringing trademarks. The announcement pointed out that sellers are advised to conduct self-inspection and remove products containing similar trademarks of Louis Vuitton Malletier , and emphasized that if rectification is not made before December 11 , 2021 , the platform will deal with it in accordance with the relevant rules of "trademark infringement".

Amazon, one of the largest e-commerce platforms, also set up a global anti-counterfeiting team ( CCU) in June last year . In April this year, Amazon and American sports camera manufacturer GoPro sued seven Chinese sellers and two companies, accusing them of openly using GoPro's trademarks and selling counterfeit " Handler " floating handles and " 3-Way " (tripod/handle/arm) three-in-one camera mounts. In November, Amazon and Weber filed a lawsuit against 12 sellers (mostly from China), accusing them of illegally selling oven guards with the " WEBER " registered trademark on the Amazon platform and publishing false advertisements to induce consumers to buy.

For sellers, selling infringing products may bring certain profits, but they also face extremely high risks. At the very least, the listing and store will be blocked, and at most, they will be sued in court. If such incidents occur on a large scale and attract the attention of the authorities, the e-commerce platform where they are located will also be at risk of being blocked.

Etsy

Selling fakes

Banned