Apple's Anti-Counterfeit Team Has Targeted Over 1 Million Listings on Instagram and Other Marketplaces in the Past Year
Apple has a dedicated team of experts that focus solely on ferreting out counterfeit products and stopping them from being sold. Apple shared the tidbit in a statement to Bloomberg on a piece about counterfeit iPhone chargers.
The safety of our customers is our first priority, and the risks associated with counterfeit products can be very serious. We have a dedicated team of experts constantly working with law enforcement, merchants, social media companies and e-commerce sites around the world to remove counterfeit products from the market. In the last year we have sought the removal of over 1 million listings for counterfeit and fake Apple products from online marketplaces, including Facebook and Instagram.
Apple in the last year had more than a million listings for fake Apple products removed from various online marketplaces like Facebook and Instagram.
Bloomberg's piece delves into fake chargers that have sometimes caused harm to users, with many of those chargers investigated sold on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites.
Chinese factories and illicit vendors sell knockoff Apple accessories at cheap prices, and those products are difficult to tell apart from real products. They're outwardly identical to the real thing in every way, but don't have the same safety standards.
Andrea Stroppa, a security researcher who accidentally used a counterfeit product borrowed from a friend, launched an investigation with his colleagues from Ghost Data Team. Their study from February 8 to March 8 uncovered 163 wholesale sellers of counterfeit Apple products on Instagram, ranging from fake $25 AirPods Pro to a fake $5 MagSafe Charger.
When purchasing an Apple accessory, it's important to make sure you buy from a reputable retailer or from Apple's own site to avoid fakes, and accessories should never be purchased on sites like Instagram.
Related Stories
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's own personal information was among the details of 533 million Facebook users that leaked in a data breach, it has emerged.
Facebook has now confirmed that the leaked data was obtained not by a hack, but by scraping the platform prior to September 2019. The company now says that an exploit was found in its contact importer, but the "specific issue that allowed...
Announced at CES 2021, Belkin's new MagSafe compatible 2-in-1 wireless charger is now available to pre-order for $99.99.
The accessory features a MagSafe charger for the iPhone 12 series and a Qi wireless charging pad at the bottom of the base for devices such as AirPods. The main MagSafe charger charges iPhone 12 models at 15W, and the base charging pad charges at 5W. The MagSafe charger is ...
Apple accessories like watch bands and cases are often imitated by companies who want to make a quick buck fooling customers, and the new MagSafe charging line is no exception. There are dozens of fake MagSafe and MagSafe Duo chargers out there that consumers need to watch out for.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Over on our YouTube channel, MacRumors videographer...
In our latest exclusive sale, we've partnered with Hyper to offer our readers 20 percent off sitewide at the company's website. This sale will run through Sunday, April 18 and you'll need to enter the coupon code HYPERUMORS at checkout to get the discount.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Hyper. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps...
Apple's MagSafe Duo Charger has dropped to $99.99 today at Best Buy, down from $129.00. This is the first time we've ever seen the new MagSafe Duo Charger receive a notable discount at one of the major Apple resellers, with Amazon only offering between $2 and $3 off in the form of coupons over the past few weeks.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you...
Encrypted messaging app Signal has had a series of Instagram ads blocked from the social media platform, after it attempted to show users how much data the Facebook-owned company collects about them and how it's used to push targeted ads.
In a blog post, Signal described how it generated the ads to show users why they were seeing them, simply by declaring upfront the information that the...
MacRumors and Nomad have partnered up this week to offer our readers a chance to save 20 percent on any full-priced products across Nomad's entire website, using the code MACRUMORS. This sitewide sale will last through April 11 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Nomad. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps...
Instagram today announced several new tools and changes coming to the platform with the aim of "protecting young people." Amongst the changes will be the inability for adults to DM teenagers (users under 18 years old) who don't follow them.
Instagram says it has partnered with The Child Mind Institute and the non-profit group ConnectSafely to publish a new Parents Guide in the U.S. The new...
Popular Stories
Continuing the tradition set with the iPhone 13 Pro, only the highest-end iPhone 14 models will feature Apple's ProMotion display technology, according to a respected display analyst.
Ross Young, who on multiple occasions has detailed accurate information about Apple's future products, said in a tweet that ProMotion will not be expanded to the entire iPhone 14 lineup and will remain...
A bug in WebKit's implementation of a JavaScript API called IndexedDB can reveal your recent browsing history and even your identity, according to a blog post shared on Friday by browser fingerprinting service FingerprintJS.
In a nutshell, the bug allows any website that uses IndexedDB to access the names of IndexedDB databases generated by other websites during a user's browsing session....
Apple is planning to release a fifth-generation iPad Air with similar features as the sixth-generation iPad mini, including an A15 Bionic chip, 12-megapixel Ultra Wide front camera with Center Stage support, 5G for cellular models, and Quad-LED True Tone flash, according to Japanese blog Mac Otakara.
Citing reliables sources in China, the report claims that the new iPad Air could be...
Much has been said about what consumers could see from Apple in 2022, but the company is also working on a handful of rumored products that aren't expected to be unveiled for at least another 12 months, and in some cases a lot longer. Of course, that's assuming they get released at all. Apple works on many potential products some of which ultimately never see the light of day. With that in...
Apple's second-generation AirPods Pro could arrive alongside a new series of accessories, recent leaked images suggest.
Alleged leaked photos of the next-generation AirPods Pro obtained by MacRumors showed a charging case with a metal loop on the side for attaching a strap. Apple has not used this design for any of its other AirPod models and it is unclear why it would be added in this...
Netflix today updated the prices for its streaming plans, and all of its offerings are now more expensive. The Basic plan is now priced at $9.99 per month, the Standard plan is priced at $15.49 per month, and the Premium plan is priced at $19.99 per month.
The Basic plan is $1 more expensive, up from $8.99 per month. This plan allows users to watch on just one screen at a time, and it limits ...
A Tesla Model 3 owner has resorted to a workaround to implement Apple CarPlay in his vehicle, amid no sign of official support from Tesla (via Tesla North).
Apple CarPlay and Apple Music support are among the most-requested Tesla features, but with no indication that Tesla is willing to implement Apple CarPlay in its vehicles, Polish developer Michał Gapiński took matters into his own...
Hole-punch? Pill? Hole-punch and pill? Rumors about what the front camera system on the iPhone 14 Pro will look like are evolving rapidly, and it now appears we might be getting a novel but potentially controversial design later this year.
Other major stories this week included some confusion and controversy about iCloud Private Relay being disabled for some T-Mobile customers, increasing...
Top Rated Comments
It sure seems like this would mean that they aren't identical in every way.