Amazon.com Using Our Company Name to Sell Their Products - Grey/Black Hat?

[sderuyter]

Amazon.com created a branded landing page using our company name. Problem is, we don't sell our products through them, but they seem to have scraped our data feed or modeled our product feed by listing different brands work pants, underwear and gadgets that we don't sell, but are very similar to ours. Of course, the products listed are products from their affiliate/partner sites (and fulfilled by them in many cases).

The offending page is here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1001022921 NOTE: It is already #2 in Google SERP for our branded term, thanks to their monster domain authority.

We do use their CPC/product listings ad services, but it's limited as they don't accept our clothing products. Any recommendations on how to approach this, legally? This happen to anyone else?

Better yet, isn't this a very grey/black hat approach to utilizing their domain authority to mislead OUR customers (remember, that page isn't selling our products!)?

[BlueprintMarketing]

I have a suspicion another person has created this on Amazon and intends to resell either products using the

** I hav**e an extremely hard time bleaving  that Amazon itself really cares enough to do something where they're selling something illegally and it's actually corporate doing it. However strange things happened and I would say the only way to find out is contacting Amazon telling them that either they or somebody else more likely is selling Dt****uluth Trading Company  products and you wish it to stop however I think somebody is simply using your companies

** name this way they can simply purchase from you and resell.**

At Amazon.com, we not only have a large collection of Duluth Trading Company products, but also a comprehensive set of reviews from our customers. Below we've selected a subset of Duluth Trading Company products and the corresponding reviews to help you do better research, and choose the product that best suits your needs.

My recommendation to you is you contact Amazon.com and express to them that you do not wish to have your products sold through their name on their website. Why corporate whatever not want more of your actual real products sold I can't understand. However if this is a real problem I suggest that you use the link below in order to get in touch with Amazon and voice your concerns. In all honesty and less their fake products I do not quite understand why the brand Duluth trading Company would not want them sold? However I don't know enough about the situation I hope I've been of help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/

| "So far they're great." - By M. Snodgrass (Missouri, USA)

Just got them from another site and for less. They look good, have plenty of pockets, and are plenty flexible for me. I don't plan on doing karate in these and its pretty easy to hike up a leg to climb over something or work on my knees without my pants fighting me which I cant say about most of my other pairs. Doesn't bunch up or constrict anywhere. I have to wear khakis at work, and the coyote brown color looks a lot like my dockers did when they were new. These are lighter and cooler than my dockers and just as comfortable. So far I'm more than happy with my purchase. Will update this after a few months of wear.

sincerely,

Thomas

|

[PaddyDisplays]

I agree with Thomas contact amazon asking them to remove it for copyright reasons

and/or issue a dmca take-down notice with google (chilled effects), so it will at least it will be removed from the SERPs

[matbennett]

Presumably you have a trademark on the name?  If so this is really straight forward. If not then it is likely passing off anyway.

If it were anyone other than amazon then my order to attack would be:

• Cease and desist letter
• Discuss damages claim with trusted legal advisor
• DMCA request

With amazon it might be worth taking the "My legal advisors want me to pursue it,but I can't believe amazon would do this deliberately" approach.

In truch no-one at amazon probably even knows about it.  Someone on the marketplace probably listed a product as being your brand once an that created the brand page. Since then they've just filled it in automatically with whatever they can find.

Definitely pursue this though. What they are doing is wrong and enforceable by law (here in the UK at least - but I believe that it is even more so in the US)

[BlueprintMarketing]

Here are somemore links that might help

Whoever they are there and Amazon prime member which means you should use this link to get your complaint routed correctly

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=13819211

http://forums.oscommerce.com/topic/306857-can-you-get-sued-for-selling-some-brand-items/

As far as legalities go I don't think you'll have to do anything as aggressive as that however if you do LegalZoom.com has a fantastic deal where you can actually speak to a real attorney for only $25 and they will write a two page letter on your behalf and they are a real attorney I've done it it's a very good deal they also have very good legal forms

Sincerely, Thomas

[sderuyter]

Thanks, Paddy. Will report back on how this goes.

[sderuyter]

Thanks for the input, Mat. I was thinking an aggressive approach would be best - even if it is an auto-generated page, as Amazon needs to have controls in place due to their online authority.

Will post an update.

[sderuyter]

UPDATE: First, we ended our advertising relationship with Amazon, as our lawyer felt that it created a grey area as to their page content being true (I've added a link to a screenshot below of the offending page for documentation).

Three weeks after ending our relationship, my internal team went through the standard Amazon forms to report this page, but hit a dead end, as many of their forms aren't set up to "report Amazon", but rather other publishers.

Our lawyer ended up sending a cease and desist, and the page was removed in 2-3 days and de-indexed from Google within a week. Pretty amazing.

I would like to add that the offending page was constantly being optimized - page layout, image sizes, products featured, types of products - meaning it was an active page they were managing.

LEARNING: Treat your brand like your crotch, and defend it as such!

Image of Page: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4YMo_XFUoBeMlprOGRMOGROMTg/edit?usp=sharing

Image of SERP: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4YMo_XFUoBeYlJQakxjcXBFOXc/edit?usp=sharing

[KeriMorgret]

Thanks for the update, and my laugh for the afternoon at your Learning!

[BlueprintMarketing]

I am glad to hear that went so well.

Did you use the attorney I suggested his links right here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jr2gdPY-88w

watch video then

just kidding ha ha

sincerely,

Thomas