From the biggest name brands, to start-up companies- all businesses are vulnerable to online imitators.
What impact can these counterfeiters have on their targets?
It means that the legitimate brands can lose their customer’s loyalty (when they receive a subpar product), health and safety issues for their consumers, customers being scammed out of their hard-earned money, loss of revenue for the company, problems with other companies they are working with, and a domino-effect of other issues behind the scenes.
NFTs have also become extremely popular- and with its popularity comes a tirade of attackers. Both brands and the public have become involved in this new digital currency, and many have already found themselves scammed out of thousands upon thousands of dollars because they couldn’t differentiate the real ones from the fakes.
Let’s take a moment to find out how DejaVuAI can help consumers and brands avoid these issues:
ROGUE SITES
Do you know about rogue websites? These are sites that try to copy a real brand’s website (and install malware, scam people out of money, or sell counterfeit products/services- see section below) by using common typos of web addresses to bring people to dangerous sites.
What about a legitimate online marketplace- but one that is ridden with counterfeit brands selling on them? This can be confusing for many consumers, as it is often believed that there would be extensive background checks before the website would allow that seller on their site. However, this is not always the case. Even if a marketplace tries to monitor their sellers, there are always those who be be convincing enough to make it past those lackluster security measures.
What if you could be notified about new websites popping up, using your likeness? Or, what if you are involved in running an online marketplace but have an overwhelming number of sellers you need to check for legitimacy? DejaVuAI is your answer in both cases.
COUNTERFEITED PRODUCTS
This is a huge problem in the medical and cosmetic industries, although it’s not limited to these. There are people who steal a brand’s logo and plaster it onto a product, and then sell it under the real company’s name. The way to tell these apart are the slight differences in packaging and the actual products themselves- but this can be increasingly difficult, especially for people who are not on the lookout and don’t know that these sorts of scams are prevalent.
Most customers will trust when they find a brand name on a reputable online marketplace, that it is truly from that company. Thus, when they have a terrible experience with the product, they then blame the real business without realizing they were duped. The actual company’s reputation is now ruined with this person, and whomever they tell about their experience.
Counterfeited products can also become a huge health issue for consumers. Illegal online sales of medication are often fraudulent products and can contain no active substance or too much. It can also contain an altogether different ingredient than what is listed. Some creators of these “medications” use flour, brick dust, and even sheet rock to make fake pills, as stated in uspharmacist.com’s article, “The Real Impact of Counterfeit Medications”.
There is also the problem of the dangerous ingredients used in fake cosmetics. These are obviously applied on the skin, lips, and close to the eyes. According to healthline.com, counterfeit makeup often contains known carcinogens. There have been known cases of severe injury such as burns and infections, resulting in scars and disfigurement.
DejaVuAI can provide brands with confidence that they can detect fake products, whether it’s extremely similar or has major differences.
FALSE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
DejaVuAI has talked about this extensively before since fake social media accounts can be a danger not only for brands, but also for the public. They are often used to target vulnerable people and can result in cyberbullying, identity theft, and even human trafficking.
Identity theft is not only a concern for an individual user. An account can pop up with your brand’s logo and begin wreaking havoc. It could ask people for personal information (such as for a phony giveaway) or make offensive comments that cause people to boycott the company. A terrible fact is that there are so many fake accounts, social media platforms are unable to stop them all- so your best chance at finding them is coming across it yourself and reporting it. It could be up for days or weeks, ruining your reputation.
Our image recognition algorithm is unrivaled in the speed and accuracy of catching these faked accounts. Find and shut them down as quickly as possible- before damage can be done.
UNAUTHORIZED CONTENT IN VIDEO/MOVIES
Find your product or logo being used in movies or videos without your permission. We can detect your logo even if it shows up on a shirt, on something in the background, or if your product is being used by the actors- even if the creators try to disguise it from image recognition systems by partially blocking it or making the lighting a little dimmer.
Or, protect your film company from a copyright infringement case. Run your content through our technology and find any instance of a brand accidentally showing up in your film (such as in a public place). Prevent any legal action against yourself that may come from unauthorized content.
SPOTTING FAKE NFTs
Have you invested or are looking to invest in some NFTs? Then you may have concerns about how easy it is for scammers to sell fake versions. Other articles suggest using current online reverse image search engines to see if they are fake. However, this isn’t foolproof – we have shown in our demos how easily these systems can be fooled. Our system can find exact, skewed, flipped, or other variants in a fraction of the time and with more accuracy. Our algorithm could benefit NFT marketplaces by improving their copymint prevention approaches to automatically filter out accounts that are selling counterfeit NFTs.
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