Misleading ads continue to abound on online shopping sites.
Nearly 10 million advertisements of counterfeit products were withdrawn from online sales between July and October 2021, the Unifab association announced on Wednesday after a survey of its members.
Attractive prices, express deliveries ... Attractive offers of counterfeit products are all the more difficult to avoid as they affect all types of products and all sectors.
Read alsoEurope summoned to tackle online counterfeiting
The Manufacturers' Union (Unifab), which brings together 200 manufacturers from all sectors and professional federations committed to the fight against counterfeiting, identified exactly 9,892,493 advertisements withdrawn by a sample of 26 companies from different sectors (leather goods, loan -to-wear, pharmacy, automotive equipment ...), she said in a press release.
This brings the number of illegal ads removed over the past eleven months to over 27.7 million.
Counterfeiting and organized crime
According to the Unifab association, the rise of e-commerce during the pandemic directly led to this
"intensification of the supply of fake products",
80% from China. However, one figure would remain unchanged since 2018: that of the number of consumers who have already bought a counterfeit product on the internet, estimated at 37% according to an IFOP study carried out for Unifab.
"To protect our fellow citizens, it is now very urgent to inform them and to collaborate with the legislator so that they become aware of the economic, societal, environmental and security issues that counterfeit consumption generates"
, declared Christian Peugeot, president of Unifab, cited in the press release.
A real danger for the health and safety of consumers, but not only that, the counterfeit market also hides close links with organized criminal networks financed by the sale of these products.
The OECD estimates that 3.3% of world trade is the scourge of counterfeiting and more than 100 billion euros lost in Europe.
To fight against the link between counterfeiting and “organized crime”, Unifab is launching a regional awareness campaign using urban posters, as well as a dedicated web page on social networks with the city of Lyon as a starting point, particularly affected by the sale of fake products online, on social networks, but also in physical.
More risks as the holidays approach
If all products sold online are targeted, professionals in the fight against counterfeiting particularly call for vigilance as the end of the year holidays approach. The association is also launching an awareness campaign for Black Friday, in partnership with the National Institute of Industrial Property, the National Anti-Counterfeiting Committee, Customs and the Gendarmerie. In particular, it provides consumers on its site with advice on how to avoid counterfeiting, as well as a quiz on the subject.
This campaign comes at a time when a bill
"aimed at modernizing the fight against counterfeiting"
was tabled by Pierre-Yves Bournazel (Agir) and Christophe Blanchet (MoDem) and must be examined this Wednesday in the Law Commission at the National Assembly. According to the reporters of the bill, the size of the counterfeiting market would, according to an estimate by the Court of Auditors, be responsible in 2019 for "
10 billion euros in tax losses for the State and more than 40,000 jobs destroyed each year
".
The bill proposes in particular the creation of a coordination structure for the fight against counterfeiting led by an interministerial delegate, or the experimentation for five years of a judicial chamber dedicated to online trade disputes.
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