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26 January 2016Trademarks

FBI to partner with online retailers to crack down on counterfeiters

The FBI has said it will focus on working with online retailers and payment service providers to help clamp down on the sale of counterfeits.

In a statement released on Friday, January 22, the agency said it will work with digital marketplaces to tackle criminal groups that sell fake goods. Counterfeiters use such platforms to give off the image of legitimacy, the FBI said.

The FBI added that it will also work with payment service providers and advertisers to tackle other forms of revenue streams for the groups and warned that advertisers may be inadvertently spending advertising money on criminal websites.

David Farquhar, head of the FBI’s intellectual property and cyber-enable crimes unit, said: “We’re not only broadening awareness of the crime problem, we can also obtain information about crime trends, get investigative leads that will help us identify criminals, and collect evidence of criminal activity”.

The strategy is part of a wider policy conducted by the US Department of Justice to combat counterfeiters. In addition to tackling counterfeits, the FBI said it will work closely on tackling trade secrets theft.

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