Faux.fr celebrates its 5th anniversary

Faux.fr, our information site on domain names used for abuses such as phishing or the sale of counterfeit goods, celebrates its 5th anniversary.

Five years ago, the first Covid-19 pandemic-related containment in France began. To complement our Blog on Solidnames.fr, we decided to create a news site dedicated to extrajudicial “UDRP” decisions handed down in phishing and counterfeit product sales cases.

The domain name chosen for this new site is faux.fr. The name is surprisingly free. It is one of the terms subject to prior review by Afnic. In fact, Faux is also the name of a French commune.

After reviewing our application, the French domain name registry awarded Solidnames the domain name faux.fr.

Five years later, almost 400 articles have been published on our news site.

News on trademark infringement actions

The news site deals with decisions relating to the sale of counterfeit goods over the Internet in all sectors of activity.

Fashion is obviously represented. Fake clothes (even children’s), fake lingerie, fake shoes (including boots, trainers and sandals), fake jewelry, fake watches… The counterfeit goods shopping is colossal.

However, counterfeiting also affects more surprising sectors. For example, there are fake household appliances, DIY products, toys, weapons (!), cigarettes, medicines and even pet products.

Counterfeit brands sometimes face major counterfeiting networks. In this case, they can consolidate their UDRP complaint. In this way, dozens of bogus websites can fall into the wrong hands. .

Some of the most emblematic complaints of recent years include Clarks in 2023 (428 domain names!), Gucci in 2020 (204 names) and Axel Arigato in 2021 (101 sites).

Among the counterfeiters, Malaysian company Web Commerce Communications has often been implicated.

Faux.fr deciphers abuses such as phishing

The other main category of the faux.fr website concerns phishing damage.

Identity theft by e-mail has exploded in recent years. In the past, phishing has historically targeted banks.

Nowadays, all sectors are affected by misappropriation of funds or goods.

Fake surveys and gift card scams are also set up to collect personal data and financial information on their victims.

New scams such as fake job offers based on cybersquatted domain names have also been created.

Law firms representing trademarks in UDRP proceedings

Faced with these numerous abuses, companies regularly use a legal representative to back up their UDRP complaints.

In France, SCAN(Decathlon, Laboratoires Théa, Le Duff…) and Koblenz(Amina Muaddi, The Frankie Shop…) are active in this field.

Among the Industrial Property Attorneys, Germain & Maureau(Aubade, Bonpoint, Lafuma…), Lynde & Associés(Alstom), MIIP – Made In IP(Cache-Cache, Leclerc, Marlink…) or Plasseraud IP(bioMérieux, Magasins U, Rothschild…) won numerous decisions for their customers.

These victories have been chronicled on Faux.fr for the past 5 years, and will continue to be for many years to come. Happy Birthday!