Instagram Transforms The Web Into A Global Counterfeit Marketplace

Counterfeit product posts linked to luxury brands triples.

April 24, 2019 - Los Angeles, CA – Research by Ghost Data exclusively reviewed and reported by NBC News highlights abuse of Instagram's platform by groups of organized criminals promoting counterfeit luxury products. The number of Instagram accounts involved in counterfeiting activities linked to brands including Gucci, Chanel, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, and Dior has almost tripled over the last three years.

“The luxury brands I speak to are frustrated because it’s so easy to find these accounts, but Instagram is not very responsive,” said Andrea Stroppa, CEO of Ghost Data, who spearheaded the research. The researchers found that for each luxury brand’s hashtag, for example #Gucci or #Dior, about 15 percent of posts were generated by accounts dedicated to illegal counterfeiting activities.

NBC News found it easy to identify fake products on Instagram with the right search terms. Hashtags such as #mirrorquality and #mirrorbag are coded descriptions for counterfeits, as are #replica and #replica shoes. All of these hashtags yielded hundreds of thousands of search results.

An Instagram spokeswoman told NBC that the platform takes “IP rights, including issues around counterfeiting, very seriously” and “We now regularly respond to reports of counterfeit content within one day, and often within a matter of hours,” she said.

The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and industry watchdog, has identified and removed over 190 million online counterfeit items destined for consumers. Don't believe you can't get a fake. E-commerce and social-media are the perfect platforms to enable and facilitate distribution of hundreds-of-millions of counterfeit goods to unsuspecting consumers.

The value of counterfeit and pirated goods is forecast to grow to $2.8 trillion and cost 5.4 million net job losses by 2022 states a 2017 International Chamber of Commerce Report.