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.
Popular Stories
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
Here's what's supposedly coming:
An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
Apple today seeded the second release candidate version of iOS 26.2 to developers and public beta testers, with the software coming one week after Apple seeded the first RC. The release candidate represents the final version iOS 26.2 that will be provided to the public if no further bugs are found.
Registered developers and public beta testers can download the betas from the Settings app on...
Apple is actively testing under-screen Face ID for next year's iPhone 18 Pro models using a special "spliced micro-transparent glass" window built into the display, claims a Chinese leaker.
According to "Smart Pikachu," a Weibo account that has previously shared accurate supply-chain details on Chinese Android hardware, Apple is testing the special glass as a way to let the TrueDepth...
Apple is working on a smart home hub that will rely heavily on the more capable version of Siri that's coming next year. We've heard quite a bit about the hub over the last two years, but a recent iOS 26 code leak provides additional insight into what we can expect and confirms rumored features.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Macworld claims to have access to an ...
Apple's next-generation Studio Display is expected to arrive early next year, and a new report allegedly provides a couple more details on the external monitor's capabilities.
According to internal Apple code seen by Macworld, the new external display will feature a variable refresh rate capable of up to 120Hz – aka ProMotion – as well as support for HDR content. The current Studio...
