Alibaba
Unlike Kering, Burberry has stayed friendly with China’s Alibaba, agreeing to distribute some products via the company’s sites in return for help. Alibaba in April removed 23,000 unauthorized Burberry goods on Tmall.com, according to the London-based company.
“We feel that by engaging actively with them, we also get the benefit of a good relationship in terms of cleanup,” John Smith, Burberry’s chief operating officer, told analysts in May. Burberry, one of the first luxury-goods makers to embrace e- commerce, has a similar deal with Amazon.com Inc.
Bags bearing Gucci’s trademark were being sold on an Alibaba site by a vendor for as little as $2 apiece, compared with $795 for an authentic version, according to Kering. Alibaba said in May that Kering’s claim that it knowingly encouraged, assisted and profited from the sale of counterfeits is baseless.
Game Changer?
The speed and breadth of Data & Data’s software has piqued the interest of LVMH and Kering. They’re among businesses to have met with company founder Zouheir Guedri since he launched the platform in December, though neither would say if they’re using it. Data & Data is working with about 30 luxury brands, according to Guedri, who declined to reveal his clients because of confidentiality agreements.
Colored dots glow on a map of the world each time there is an infringement on the Web, with clusters of them in South America and Asia. Behind the interface, Guedri’s algorithms detect and screen tens of millions of sources daily by comparing them with detailed product information such as size and color.
Once the bad eggs have been identified, brand owners can use the system to notify the marketplaces and social media sites, which more often than not remove infringing links immediately, or take legal action, according to Guedri.
“Our aim is to be smarter, faster and more efficient than the pirates,” said Guedri, whose technology went on display last month alongside examples of fake Chanel perfume and Tag Heuer watches in Paris’s Museum of Counterfeiting. “If we can limit unauthorized selling to the Dark Web or small groups, then we can consider we’ve won.”