markmonitor.com

Archive for the ‘Brandjacking’ Category

Counterfeit Merchandise – Beyond Luxury Knockoffs

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Designers and trade experts have noticed a rise in the counterfeiting of non-luxury brands according to a recent article titled, “Economic Indicator: Even Cheaper Knockoffs." The article indicates that non-luxury and lesser targeted brands are being heavily counterfeited alongside Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton. It should not come as a big ...

Understanding ‘Hot Triggers’ from a Scammers Perspective

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

BJ Fogg, Director of Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, recently gave a keynote session at last week’s Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in San Francisco called "Hot Triggers: The Power to Change Behavior". Recognized for his studies between the relationship of persuasion and technology, Fogg focused the discussion around ...

Cyberlockers Also Prevail

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

File-hosting companies are the latest class of online service providers to successfully dodge copyright infringement claims.  Like online marketplace and search engine providers, cyberlockers have also triumphed in lawsuits filed against them because they were protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbor. A recent example involved a lawsuit ...

Google to allow 3rd parties to bid on trademarked keywords in AdWords across Europe

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Google recently announced that starting September 14, 2010, it will begin to allow advertisers in most European countries to use competitors’ trademarks when bidding for online ads. This shift in European policy doesn’t come as a complete surprise as the European Court of Justice (ECJ) sided with Google in the ...

Website seals of approval – can you trust them?

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

The abuse of well-known seal of approvals seems to be the latest ruse used by online fraudsters. Leveraging reputable names that existed long before anyone heard of the Internet is a blaring reminder that even trustworthy seals are not off limits to scammers. In fact, linking to reliable sources of ...

Phish Hosted for Free

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Since March 2010, and especially this month, the MarkMonitor Security Operations Center (SOC) has noticed a significant increase in the use of free web hosting services for phishing and malware attacks.  Cybercriminals are using free hosting services to either host the phishing and malware sites themselves or redirect to fast-flux ...

Chanel’s Message On Fakes: We Take It Seriously & So Should You

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Chanel’s warning to counterfeiters: "we are watching and we are taking action." That’s the literal message you will see when visiting around 40 websites that used to sell counterfeit goods (such as mychanelshop.com) that now redirect to the Chanel-owned website chanelreplica.com. These domains were transferred to Chanel as a result ...

New Monthly Fraud Intelligence Report Now Available

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Beginning this month, MarkMonitor will be sharing a new, monthly Fraud Intelligence Report with customers and other interested parties in our blog. The goal of the report is to provide timely analysis of developing trends and new threats in the fraud landscape. The Fraud Intelligence Report will complement the current ...

e-Book Piracy: The Next Big Threat?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

According to a CNN article, in less than 24 hours following the September 2009 release of Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel The Lost Symbol, pirated versions were discovered on file sharing sites, such as RapidShare and BitTorrent. Within days, the book had been illegally downloaded more than 100,000 times. As of ...

Old Dog, New Tricks: Gift Card Scams in Social Networks

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

In the past few months, a flurry of gift card scams leveraging such high-profile brands as Best Buy, Whole Foods and IKEA have emerged on Facebook. These scams often use the brand’s logo, website URL, or general “look and feel” on Facebook “fan” pages to give the impression that these ...