eBay Fined $2.6 Million Over LVMH Sales
December 1, 2009
If a French court has its way, eBay will soon have to fork over $2.6 million. The fine stems from a ban on the sale (or purchase) of LVMH goods, and actually ties to a case that ended in eBay being told to pay LVMH $61 million.
LVMH, which is the entity behind luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Tag Heuer, and De Beers, won a major case against eBay in June of last year. LVMH claimed to be concerned about the sale of counterfeit merchandise, and eBay was supposed to keep all related items off its French site as a result.
Apparently eBay wasn't completely successful, however (misspelled listings may have created problems), hence the latest fine.
Now, Alex von Schirmeister, the general manager of eBay in France, has stated, "We believe that the higher courts will overturn this ruling and ensure that eCommerce companies such as eBay will continue to provide a platform for buyers and sellers to trade authentic goods.
von Schirmeister also said, "The fine itself is disproportionate given that eBay complied with the Injunction. It is out of step with our legal victories in France, UK, Germany, Belgium and the U.S."
Look for further developments down the road, then, as eBay appeals the ruling.
Have You Read This?
> eBay Collects Another Win Against L'Oreal
> eBay Wins French Ruling Over L'Oreal Fakes
eBay Fined $2.6 Million Over LVMH Sales
December 1, 2009
If a French court has its way, eBay will soon have to fork over $2.6 million. The fine stems from a ban on the sale (or purchase) of LVMH goods, and actually ties to a case that ended in eBay being told to pay LVMH $61 million.
LVMH, which is the entity behind luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Tag Heuer, and De Beers, won a major case against eBay in June of last year. LVMH claimed to be concerned about the sale of counterfeit merchandise, and eBay was supposed to keep all related items off its French site as a result.
Apparently eBay wasn't completely successful, however (misspelled listings may have created problems), hence the latest fine.
Now, Alex von Schirmeister, the general manager of eBay in France, has stated, "We believe that the higher courts will overturn this ruling and ensure that eCommerce companies such as eBay will continue to provide a platform for buyers and sellers to trade authentic goods.
von Schirmeister also said, "The fine itself is disproportionate given that eBay complied with the Injunction. It is out of step with our legal victories in France, UK, Germany, Belgium and the U.S."
Look for further developments down the road, then, as eBay appeals the ruling.
Have You Read This?
> eBay Collects Another Win Against L'Oreal
> eBay Wins French Ruling Over L'Oreal Fakes
Search as Navigation On the Rise
August 27, 2009
Compete has shared some interesting data indicating that web users are increasingly using search engines to simply navigate to the sites they want to visit. For example, they are typing "facebook" in Google rather than just going to facebook.com from their address bar.
Following is a look at the fastest growing search terms according to Compete, for the top five search engines. You'll notice that this list is largely dominated by brand names.
Some key findings shard by Compete include:
- Facebook, Craigslist, Twitter, and YouTube have seen explosive traffic growth in the past year and to follow suit their query volumes have grown substantially
- While portal properties Yahoo! (141MM Uvs) and AOL (55MM Uvs) haven’t significantly grown in traffic, they have seen 50%+ increase in brand queries since last year
- No sharp traffic trends in webmail properties Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail, but brand terms for both of these properties have risen sharply
Now look at this other chart that shows the top five search terms to some of these brand sites.
It's pretty telling, is it not? I would guess that a lot of this stems from users having search on either their home page or right on their browser. It's easier to type "facebook" than to type "facebook.com" (granted, not by much, but humans are a lazy species). For that matter (at least in Firefox) if you type "facebook" into the address bar, it brings you up a list of search results anyway, then you are just a click away from facebook.com.
You better make sure you rank number one for your brand, or you just might be losing traffic to the site that is.
