Amazon to Crack Down on Counterfeit Goods Sold on its Marketplace - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Amazon to Crack Down on Counterfeit Goods Sold on its Marketplace

by

Amazon has acknowledged a worsening counterfeit problem on its site and says it has made fighting the fake products a "major goal" for next year (via The Verge).

Last month Apple filed a lawsuit against Mobile Star LLC which it accused of infringing upon its trademarks and copyrights by selling counterfeit power adapters and cables on Amazon. Apple claimed the fake products posed a risk to life, and said it had found that almost 90 percent of so-called genuine Apple products and accessories it purchased from Amazon over the last nine months were actually counterfeit.

amazon-review-mobile-star
Following the lawsuit, Amazon said it had "zero tolerance for the sale of counterfeits" on its website and said it was working closely with manufacturers and brands to aggressively pursue the wrongdoers.

Bloomberg reports that Amazon now says it plans to create a registry to prevent fakes and wants legitimate brands to register even if they don't plan on selling products on the site. Merchants then have to obtain official brand permission before they can sell goods from the company.

Amazon has reportedly been experimenting with Nike and other brands to build the registry, but the company says it will target more brands in 2017 in an attempt to get them to sell their products on Amazon's marketplace. According to the report, Amazon tried to get the NFL and MLB to sell merchandise through its online marketplace, but the negotiations stalled because of a perceived lack of control over existing fake goods.

Tag: Amazon

Top Rated Comments

Kebabselector Avatar
126 months ago
I think the Marketplace cheapens the brand (and they are not the only people to do this). If I wanted cheap dodgy goods I'd use ebay.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
keysofanxiety Avatar
126 months ago
Long overdue, but great news.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Phil A. Avatar
126 months ago
If Mobile Star would pay the license of their product to Apple would that make all their product MFi? Obviously Mobile Star is infringing the design and they need to pay their dues.
I think the biggest problem is they've been selling stuff as "genuine apple" when it's clearly nothing of the kind: Nothing to do with paying dues and everything to do with blatant counterfeiting as I understand it
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ftaok Avatar
126 months ago
The reason why I brought that up because the functionality of the product that is copied works just like the original or an MFI product. Obviously Apple argues about safely but if this was licensed then it is now labeled as safe. I know about issues being caught on fire but it did happen to Apple products or MFI licensed product as well. I know for sure that this company is blatantly counterfeiting the product.
The problem is that the MobileStar chargers look just like the Apple chargers, but they skimp on the quality of the internals. From the outside, they look just like Apple chargers, plus they are listed as Apple OEM chargers.

This is the definition of counterfeit.

It's not like Anker with the mifi license. Anker stuff doesn't looke like Apple stuff.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PBG4 Dude Avatar
126 months ago
Funny how Amazon didn't see a problem when Birkenstock pulled all product from Amazon due to fakes but as soon as Apple launches a suit, it's a different story completely.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Zorn Avatar
126 months ago
I think the Marketplace cheapens the brand (and they are not the only people to do this). If I wanted cheap dodgy goods I'd use ebay.
I agree with you 110%. Lots of other sites got into this crappy business as well, if I do a search on Best Buy's site or Newegg, often times I'll get dozens of pages of "marketplace" garbage. Much of it is discontinued products as well, I can't understand why a major brand would want their storefront littered with old, dodgy junk that they have no quality control over. eBay/Craigslist exist for a reason, we don't need a knockoff of them operating on every retailer's site.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone Satellite Feature

Amazon Files for 5,105-Satellite Network That Will Power iPhone Satellite Features

Monday July 27, 2026 10:21 am PDT by
Amazon is planning to deploy up to 5,105 low Earth orbit satellites that will use Globalstar spectrum to provide voice, data, messaging, and emergency services to devices like the iPhone. Amazon's project is expected to improve existing iPhone satellite features and support new features. Apple uses Globalstar for the satellite features on the iPhone and Apple Watch Ultra 3, and Amazon is in...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching in Two Months With These 12 New Features

Friday July 24, 2026 7:26 pm PDT by
It is now late July, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are less than two months away. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro...
macbook ultra

'MacBook Ultra' Coming Soon With These 12 New Features

Friday July 24, 2026 6:00 pm PDT by
Apple's first high-end MacBook redesign in five years is expected to arrive in the near future, bringing a run of firsts to the Mac. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects the laptop to arrive between late 2026 and early 2027, with the later window now looking more likely owing to the global memory chip shortage. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects mass production to begin by late 2026. Apple last...