Amazon Looks To Eradicate Counterfeits With Project Zero

Fake products and counterfeits on the Amazon marketplace are rife. In fact, according to research conducted by brand protection company Red Points, the online retail giant’s platform is among the top websites that sell counterfeit goods.

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Unfortunately, despite having received repeated complaints from numerous brands, Amazon’s issue with counterfeiters remains unresolved to this day.

However, by introducing Project Zero, a new program powered by the eCommerce company’s machine learning algorithm, Amazon is confident that it can finally put an end to the long-standing problem.

With Project Zero, Amazon says brands no longer have to report any counterfeits to it and wait for an investigation to take place; they can easily remove these listings themselves.

“This provides brands with an unprecedented ability to directly control and remove listings from our store. This information also feeds into our automated protections so we can better catch potential counterfeit listings proactively in the future.” – The Amazon Blog: Day One

Project Zero is composed of automated protections that scan and remove counterfeits, a self-service counterfeit removal tool which allows brands to remove counterfeit listings themselves, and a product serialization service that provides a unique code for each brand’s products, which is scanned and verified to ensure product authenticity.

Sellers express concern over the possible abuse of Project Zero

Not everyone who sells on the Amazon marketplace has access to Project Zero as it’s currently available by invitation only in the U.S. Amazon says only brands with a government-registered trademark and that are enrolled in Brand Registry are qualified to join the program.

As early as now, though, a lot of retailers already fear that brands could use the tool to remove any seller by falsely accusing them of selling counterfeit goods.

Amazon dispels all doubts, saying it has placed a number of processes in place “to promote accuracy, including required training as part of Project Zero enrolment and ongoing monitoring to prevent misuse of our tools.”

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