THEAntitrust in collaboration with the Guardia di Finanza has shut down two websites that sold counterfeit Ray Ban eyewear. These are "discountraybansunglasses.org" and "raybanstores.com", owned by a certain Huang Jianhai. The Authority communicated it.
The intervention of the Antitrust “became necessary to protect the many consumers who bought on the sites – reads the note –, convinced that they were choosing original products of the famous brand offered at outlet prices. The interruption proved to be particularly urgent also because the glasses on sale, of dubious quality, could have caused damage to eyesight”.
According to the reports presented by the consumer association Adoc and by Indicam, the Centromarca Institute for the fight against counterfeiting, which forwarded the trademark owner's complaint, "consumers were misled by the structure of the sites, built in such a way as to appear official resellers of the advertised products: not only the names, but the images and photos inserted, against discounts of 50 to 70% of the official prices, made the offers credible. In essence, these were sites which, in terms of layout and graphics, were clones of the original ones”.
With this decision, the interventions carried out by the Antitrust to protect consumers who buy on the web rise to four: the blacking out of the sites follows that already carried out for clone sites of Prada and Gucci branded products, while for Hogan branded counterfeit goods, "after the initiation of the proceeding for unfair commercial practice by the Antitrust offices, the owner independently proceeded to inhibit access to the site from the Italian territory".
