What are counterfeit goods?
Google describes counterfeit goods as products that contain a trademark or logo that’s identical to that of another product. In other words, counterfeit products refer to non-authentic products that have brand name labels and logos.
These bad actors create products that mimic the brand features of other popular brands. That way, they can deceive web users into thinking that they sell genuine products of the brand owner.
Google Ads has always prohibited the sale or promotion of counterfeit goods on its platform. Now, the search and advertising giant is allowing users to report these goods within the organic search result for removal also.
The process is similar to the DMCA procedure of removing stolen copyrighted material from the search result. Here’s how it works.
How to Report Counterfeit Goods to Google
As said earlier, the approach is similar to other notice-and-takedown processes that Google has undertaken in the past. These include the DMCA as well as the voluntary removal of rogue pharmacies.
The tech company has added the counterfeit goods removal option to the legal troubleshooter form. You can also report these non-authentic goods directly from Google Search.
The process is non-algorithmic. That means you have to manually submit a takedown request for a Google employee to review. After that, the search giant can decide to take down the content or not.
Google could eventually develop a ranking algorithm using the data from these submissions over time. With that, it can limit the visibility of sites that sell counterfeit products on its search engine.
Think of the Pirate Update in 2012 that prevents sites with many copyright infringement from ranking well on Google’s listings.
With that said, the feature applies only to counterfeit products. A spokesperson from Google told Search Engine Land that the policy doesn’t cover non-counterfeit forms of trademark infringement.
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