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Counterfeiting on the Internet: A Growing Menace

By Patrick Schweihs
November 30, 2015

When most of us hear the word “counterfeit,” we think of a group of criminals in a poorly-lit warehouse surrounding a printing press, with fake U.S. dollars drying on a line behind them. Estimates in the last five years place the amount of counterfeit U.S. dollars circulating in the $250 million to $500 million range.

But the market for counterfeit goods is estimated to be greater than $650 billion per year ' a thousand times more than all estimated U.S. counterfeit dollars in circulation! For perspective, Walmart's 2014 worldwide revenue was “only” $485 billion.

Counterfeit goods are fake replicas of a real product. Typically, they are goods inferior in quality to the genuine article and illicitly feature a well-recognized trademarked brand. These goods typically originate in developing countries with strong but low-cost manufacturing capability. The goods can then be sold, especially in developed nations, at a premium.

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