PARIS - A French court has ordered EBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY) to pay the equivalent of more than US$61 million to a high-end fashion company because counterfeit goods were sold on the online auction site. http://technology.sympatico.msn.ca/...line=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
Well those fashion companies are really hard to pleased. Others would love the exposure that Ebay gives to their brands. But I guess for those fashion brands, they are famous enough not to require any such exposures. Tough for Ebay to police the auctions given the sheer number of auctions online. Wonder how is Ebay going to prevent such law suits in the future.
It definitely is a tough situation for eBay to be in. The amount of time that it would take to monitor each and every auction that gets listed on the site. I wonder if eBay may try to work with the fashion companies and other such companies to try build a better way to prevent the sales of fraudulent merchandise.
The more such monitoring, the more it is going to cost Ebay and eventually the costs will be passed to the individual traders. From reading the article it would seemed that the fashion houses are not just concerned about fraudulent merchandise but rather all merchandise under their branding. I would guess each merchandise sold under Ebay even if it is genuine means less revenue for such brands and hence the only way to please them would be for Ebay to ban the sales altogether. Hopefully this will not happen as I guess though fake goods abound, there are still those trying to earn a decent living selling 2nd hand branded goods.
No matter what happens though fake merchandise will always be around and a market for it will always exsist. People will do anything to make a quick buck or save a few.
Isn't it "guilty until proven innocent" over there? Yes, most law systems are corrupted and make stupid (and often contradicting) decisions.
True ... its the crowd which is up to make a quick buck and save a few that run this industry. Fortunately/unfortunately, "the bottom of the pyramid" is filled with such folks, who outnumber those who want to buy 'actual branded' stuff at 'actual prices'. This market will never see a low, even if the original companies would ever /G
I couldnt believe it when i heard this news at first glance i thought the amount was harsh and while i can see the fashion brands point of view but even then holding ebay personally responsible is unfair i think.
Ebay just allows a playground for these counterfit scammers. But like others have said no matter what knock off product will always be around.