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56 October 2015 | beautystorebusiness.com Guest Column Many brands have had success removing online threats by eliminating fake web- sites that sell counterfeit products, and counteracting many other brand infringe- ments. Between watchdog agencies such as IPR (whose reporting arm is StopFakes. gov), intense media attention and targeted actions to stop online marketplaces such as eBay and Alibaba from selling counter- feit goods, the heat is on for resellers to screen their vendors and put strict and appropriate guidelines in place to verify the authenticity of branded products and the reputation of sellers. GET STARTED WITH AN ANTI-COUNTERFEIT PLAN As a reputable retailer of branded beauty products, how do you start addressing the problem? As a retailer, you can take action by putting a strategic plan in place and per- forming an audit that focuses on key issues most likely to affect individual brands that you offer and their trademarks. For example, if you're merchandising luxury cosmetics brands, you might focus on activity through your supply chain. From here you should rank your most important brands, and research the possible infringe- ments and other attacks on them. This will enable your organization to focus on the enforcement that really matters. Is taking down fake websites most important? Find- ing who's making knockoffs of your most popular branded lines and putting them behind bars? Or simply protecting your brands from insult or further injury? Once your store has determined what you need to do, you can start taking down the fakes. Removing fraudulent websites from the Internet is something that hap- pens every day. Online-security specialists and a regulatory body called ICANN (icann. org) make a formidable match against the bad guys. If you've gone to the trouble of identifying who is infringing on a brand's identity, this level of fighting back is well established and has proven to be effective. The problem of less-reputable online marketplaces—such as Taobao, 1688. com and others—is already under a fair amount of scrutiny by the press and by Internet-governance bodies. However, finding out as much as you can about how they may affect you and adding your own anti-fraud initiatives will help too. Reports of the working conditions under which some of these products are manufactured is on a human-rights level alone cause enough to add muscle to the fight against these criminals. Professionals who do this on a daily basis have a number of remedial actions up their sleeves to remove or disrupt fraudulent material squatting on social-media plat- forms. These include requesting suspension of the account, or the fraudulent content, using the platform's own reporting mecha- nism. Search engines such as Google have mechanisms that can remove links, thus disrupting traffic to the fraudulent content and sites. They can even contact fraudsters directly to ask them to take down the illegal content. Serious acts of cyber crime are punishable by up to 20 years in prison and fines of hundreds of thousands of dollar. This may be just the disincentive they need to remove them from your brand's territory. The reality is that counterfeit beauty products find their way into the supply chain through many points of seepage. Removing them all may seem like an overwhelming task. However, if retailers and brand owners decide to act, they'll not only be helping to keep a brand's rep- utation clear, they'll also be protecting the beauty industry and its customers from financial and physical damage. ■ Andrew Brodsky is commercial director at NetNames (NetNames.com), a firm specializing in online brand protection and anti-counterfeiting services. He is based in New York, and can be reached at andrew.brodsky@NetNames.com.