How Do You Measure the Effectiveness of Your Brand Protection Program?
Recently, Coraline Zhang, legal counsel at DH Anti counterfeiting, made an interesting comparison between Marketing and Brand Protection. She described brand protection as very similar to marketing. The latter fights for control of market share against legitimate competitors, while the former works to reclaim market share stolen from illegal traders and discourages loyal fans from […]
Fake Reviews Become the Target of Amazon
Last year, Amazon launched an attack against over 1,000 individuals who are offering their services of providing fake four and five star reviews on-line. The individuals had mainly used the website Fiverr.com to advertise their services but the site is not exclusive in offering such services. Facebook “likes” are so routine that most brands have […]
Social Media Fraud: Creating Fake “Likes”
Based on a recent article that appeared in World Intellectual Property Review in March, 2016, Stuart Fuller of NetNames has coined a phrase “Fliking” which he is trying to get entered into the Oxford English Dictionary 2016 edition. Similar to many terms that have been born out of new technology and trends, the word fliking […]
Counterfeits in Food and Beverage
I read two articles about counterfeits, recently, that really caught my attention. It wasn’t that finding an article about counterfeits was unusual or unexpected, it was the type of products involved that highlights the lengths to which counterfeiters will go to cash in on branded products.
New gTLD Sites Add New Challenges to Brand Owners
Anyone involved in on-line activity, whether it for selling, marketing, brand protection, or domain management are aware of the new top level domains which were introduced in 2013 and are unfolding on a regular basis. In addition to the most common top level domains, .com, .net, .gov, etc., will be added a staggering number of […]
Beware: Advanced Brand Threats Require New Defenses
It’s as if not a day goes by when there isn’t news about some national brand getting hit with a data breach. High profile breaches at large chains such as Target and Home Depot saw the records of tens of millions of customers stolen. While executives at these brands have an understanding of what the […]
Social Media’s More Sinister Turn
Social Media is becoming more of a factor in the brand protection scheme of things. Once an arena where your brand can become damaged by disgruntled consumers venting on your brand’s page and your open mishandling of the situation, Social Media is becoming more of a scammer’s haven for causing damage.
The Expanding Reach of Malware
The advancement of threats to your brand are casting a wider net of places where damage can take place. In 2015 these avenues were generally via malicious MS Office email attachments with macros that were embedded with malware designed to download Trojan banking information. Also included was the targeting of users who visited sites with […]
Preventing Typosquatting: How to Minimize the Harm to your Brand
Along with all the threats to your brand, is a form of Cyber Squatting known as Typosquatting. This tactic pretty much relies on the chance that someone will spell your URL incorrectly and will allow the squatter to rob your brand of traffic, credibility and your bottom line. In order to protect your brand you […]
Identifying Counterfeits – The Dark Side of Online Shopping
With the the seemingly never ending proliferation of counterfeit goods, what also is seemingly endless is the double life many of these counterfeiters live. Take the case of counterfeit investigator Flaming Lee. Her career was tasked in investigating counterfeit goods for Swiss-based power technology Giant Asea Brown Boveri Ltd. (ABB). At the same time Ms. […]