The American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) has addressed a letter to the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to request that Amazon's marketplaces for France and India be added to an annual list of “Notorious Markets” that abet counterfeiting and piracy. Last year, the trade group made the same request regarding Amazon websites in Canada, Germany and the U.K. The USTR has granted neither request. According to AAFA's president and chief executive, Rick Helfenbein, Amazon has engaged with the issue over the past year but done nothing as yet to produce a “discernible decrease in counterfeits of our members' products” on its marketplaces. Roughly half of Amazon's sales are generated by third-party sellers, for whose wares the company is not necessarily liable. In July, however, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania ruled that Amazon is in fact liable for faulty third-party sales because, among other things, it “enables third-party vendors to conceal themselves from the customer,” who therefore has no direct recourse in case of fraud or other fault. That said, the court agreed in August to rehear the case, so the matter remains unresolved. Meanwhile, in February, Amazon undertook Project Zero, which uses an automated scanner with product serialization to authenticate merchandise. So far this year, member companies of the AAFA have cited eight online marketplaces – among them WeChat in China and Wanelo in the U.S. – and 130 physical stores as trafficking in counterfeit goods. The AAFA represents about 1,000 fashion brands.

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