MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. Marketplaces Wildberries, Ozon, and Yandex Market created a unified information system with data on counterfeit sellers to prevent its distribution, the Association of Internet Trade Companies announced on Tuesday.
"For the first time, Wildberries, Ozon, and Yandex Market began exchanging information regarding counterfeit product dealers. This decision would prohibit the sale of illegal items and limit their spread on the Russian Internet segment," the report said.
Data on cases of counterfeit goods, information about sellers of such goods, and information from documents confirming the violation are put into the information system, where other sellers can check it later and, if required, block any offenders.
Together with the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service, the companies intend to create a mechanism for suspending the activity of vendors who put offers to sell counterfeit goods. If fakes are confirmed, the sellers’ activity on the website is suspended for three months and in case of repeated violation the supplier may be banned on all platforms across the country connected to the system, the statement said.
"With the help of their internal content moderation tools, online platforms are doing extraordinary work. Because of it, counterfeit products account for 0.1% of total number of goods. However, they still exist and this is a blow to the reputation of e-commerce. Establishing mechanisms for parallel imports, that is, lawfully importing original products, in conjunction with the information system, will become a dependable tool in the fight against vendors who violate Russian law," President of the Association of Internet Trade Companies Artem Sokolov was quoted in the report.
Wildberries previously announced plans to introduce a service in August 2022 that would allow copyright holders to easily verify the authenticity of items from vendors and prohibit the sale of counterfeit goods.