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29 April 2021CopyrightAlex Baldwin

Protecting your brand in the pandemic

It has been just over a year since the world was upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, at least in the UK, we are seeing a gradual return to some semblance of normality.

But the changes in the way we work, shop and socialise over the past year will stay with us as the world shifts increasingly further online.

We have witnessed a fundamental change in online engagement, and with that bad actors looking to exploit IP have changed their tactics to better target unwilling consumers in this new digital landscape.

This has affected businesses at every level, from SMEs to billion-dollar conglomerates.

In a WIPR Insights  panel in collaboration with Appdetex yesterday, brand protection experts from Zoom, Facebook, Kilpatrick Townsend and Appdetex discussed what they are doing to protect some of the most influential brands in the world today.

Opening the session, Fred Felman, chief marketing officer at Appdetex said: “We have had to find new ways of interacting this year, and a lot of that drove growth in social media for both consumers and marketers looking to drive sales.

“Following this, bad actor behaviour has become more resilient and networked... They are seizing the opportunity of the pandemic.”

Same bad actors, new faces

“Fraud follows the market,” Dave Caplan, partner at Kilpatrick Townsend, said. “bad actor behaviour has become more resilient and networked so targeting and shutting down these services is harder than ever.”

Infringers have moved away from deceptive domains and google listings to create a network of fake websites focused on collecting data rather than selling counterfeit products. These bad actors create a network of fake social media pages and websites to appear genuine.

Caplan continued: “The fake site is a big development. But these sites sell nothing and focus on stealing your user data or credit card info. It's cheaper, you don't need to buy products. You just get the domain name and link it to a Facebook account, Instagram, etc. If only 1% of people click on it, you still get your data.

“Also, if you are shut down, most of the time the company will just move onto the next target rather than pursue litigation.”

Capitalising on disaster

The panel noted that a lot of these scams are seizing the opportunity of the pandemic to draw in unsuspecting users with financial, romance, and even covid relief scams to capitalise on the most negative impacts of the pandemic.

“Scams aren't anything new on the internet, but they have changed over the past year to reflect the new world we live in,” said Austin Phillips, trademark and marketing attorney at Facebook.

“On Instagram, we saw a lot of scams come up that, while not new, have taken on a whole new light with the current situation. Look at Instagram romance scams targeting the increasing amount of lonely people, Scam lotteries targeting people who have been impacted financially by the pandemic.

“One of the scariest new ones is fake COVID resources and relief. These actors are leveraging the pandemic for their scams on our services.”

New problems

As more businesses moved online over the past year, they have opened themselves up to a whole world of possible online fraud, infringement, and scams that they were not privy to before.

One of the biggest success stories over the past year was the meteoric rise of Zoom. But with the unprecedented success came a whole new world of bad actors exploiting the platform.

Lisa Widup, senior counsel, trademark and copyright at Zoom said: “Over the past year, we have had to deal with a lot of bad actors that we never saw previously.

“One of the biggest issues is meeting disruption or ‘Zoom bombing’ where people get access codes to meetings and disrupt calls. These groups generally congregate on social media, share codes and use copyrighted or trademarked materials. Our team internally does what they can to crack down on these and create a trusted environment.”

Widup added: “Also, people need to be reminded that Zoom is a brand, not a verb. We have had to deal with a lot of counterfeit ‘Zoom University’ t-shirts out there on websites like Redbubble. We want to support small businesses but also make sure they are using our brand properly.”

Watch ‘ Emerging from crisis: brand protection lessons from the pandemic

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Trademarks
14 May 2020   With demand for counterfeit products surging during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK Anti-Counterfeiting Group is calling for intensified defensive action by the government, law enforcement, internet platforms and brand owners. Phil Lewis of the ACG reports.
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