Amazon launches ‘Project Zero’ in India to detect and remove counterfeit products

Project Zero allows brands to directly flag and remove listings of counterfeits of their products from Amazon on their own.

Atom E-commerce

In a bid to ensure that customers receive authentic goods when shopping on Amazon. Amazon on Tuesday announced to bring "Project Zero" to India. "Project Zero" introduces additional proactive mechanisms and powerful tools to identify, block and remove counterfeits.

Over 7,000 brands have already enrolled in Project Zero across US, Europe and Japan. A number of Indian brands participated in a pilot to help the company test the experience in India.

"With this launch, we're excited to see many more brands in India, from small and emerging entrepreneurs to large multi-national brands, partner with us to drive counterfeits to zero and deliver a great shopping experience for our customers," Dharmesh M Mehta, Amazon's vice president of worldwide customer trust and partner support, said in a statement.

"Project Zero" combines Amazon's advanced technology and innovation with the sophisticated knowledge that brands have of their own intellectual property and how best to detect counterfeits of their products.

It does so through three tools: Automated protections, self-service counterfeit removal tool and product serialization.

"Project Zero builds on our long-standing work and investments to ensure that customers always receive authentic goods when shopping on Amazon," said Mehta.

In its feedback, Hindustan Unilever said the tool has brought relief to brand owners and works in a seamless manner.

Product serialisation is enabled by a unique code that brands apply within their manufacturing and packaging process, and it allows Amazon to individually scan and confirm the authenticity of every single purchase of a brand's enrolled products through Amazon's marketplace.

Interestingly, this launch comes a day after the Ministry of Corporate Affairs published draft e-commerce rules, where it stated that if a counterfeit product is found to be available on its platform, e-commerce companies must cross check with the seller and if there isn't enough evidence on the product being genuine, it will have to take down the product listing and notify consumers.