Every year the United States Trade Representative (USTR) publishes an updated list of its “Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets.”
Drawing on input from copyright holders, the report includes a non-exclusive overview of sites and services that are believed to be involved in piracy or counterfeiting.
The targets traditionally include popular piracy portals such as well known torrent sites, cyberlockers, and streaming portals. However, in recent years we have also seen domain registrars, hosting companies, and advertisers thrown into the mix.
That is also the case this year. As expected, the USTR mentions cyberlockers such as 1fichier and Uploaded, streaming portals including FMovies, and the torrent sites RARBG, Rutracker, The Pirate Bay, and 1337x.
The latter site is a new addition, of which there are a few. BestBuyIPTV, for example, which sells access to pirate IPTV services, and the streaming site Cimaclub.com, which is very popular in Saudi Arabia.
The most surprising new additions are in another league, however. For the first time ever, the USTR has listed an advertising company as a notorious market. The report calls out Propeller Ads for its role in funding piracy websites and spreading malware.
“Right holders identify Propeller Ads as providing significant advertising revenue for many popular torrent sites, cyberlockers, and other pirate websites. Propeller Ads has also been linked to serious ‘malvertising’ operations whereby malware is distributed through online advertisements,” USTR writes.
The malware angle plays an important role, as it’s the USTR’s special focus this year. The report cites a broad list of articles that highlight the malware risks on pirate sites. However, it also references a TorrentFreak article that describes some of these claims as overblown.
It’s a significant step for the USTR to add an advertising company to the report, but this is largely overshadowed by Amazon’s surprise appearance.
As a US-based company, Amazon.com can’t be listed as a notorious market, because this list is exclusively meant for foreign actors. However, the USTR bypassed this restriction by calling out Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, and Amazon.in.
The world’s largest online retailer is being labeled a notorious market because it reportedly provides a platform for copyright infringers, counterfeiters to be precise. While that is true for many online retailers, Amazon’s response to these infringers has apparently been below par.
The USTR mentions that copyright holders complain that sellers are not vetted, that the removal process is burdensome, while the counterfeiting problem continues to grow. Amazon should change its policies to address these issues.
“[Rightsholders] ask that Amazon take additional actions to address their concerns, including by collecting sufficient information from sellers to prevent repeat infringers from creating multiple storefronts on the platforms, making detailed information about the real seller of a product obvious to consumers and right holders,” the USTR writes.
Responding to the listing, an Amazon spokesperson characterized the company’s inclusion as being part of a personal vendetta of the Trump administration against the company.
“This purely political act is another example of the administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon,” the company informed Politico.
Vendetta or not, Amazon was reported to the Government by the American Apparel & Footwear Association, which specifically asked for a listing of the foreign Amazon domains.
Amazon is not the only online retailer that’s listed. The US Government also sees the Chinese platform Taobao, India’s Snapdeal, and the Indonesian store Tokopedia as notorious platforms.
Below we have compiled a full list of all the online sites and services that are mentioned. Although some harsh language is used, the USTR stresses that its overview doesn’t “make findings of legal violations” and that these are merely “illustrative.”
Most importantly, perhaps, the report is used to send a clear warning to the sites and companies involved, suggesting that it might be a good idea to implement some changes. That’s not likely to impress sites such as The Pirate Bay, but others may be more susceptible.
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A copy of the USTR’s 2019 overview of notorious markets (published yesterday) is available here (pdf). The full list of highlighted online sites/service, including those focused on counterfeiting, is as follows:
-1337x.to
-1Fichier.com
-Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, and Amazon.in
-Bestbuyiptv.com
-Bukalapak.com
-Carousell.com
-Chomikuj.pl
-Cimaclub.com
-DHgate.com
-Dytt8.net
-FlokiNET
-Flvto.biz and 2Conv.com
-FMovies.is
-Hosting Concepts B.V.
-MP3juices.cc
-Mp3va.com
-Mpgh.net
-Newalbumreleases.net
-Phimmoi.net
-Pinduoduo.com
-Private Layer Hosted Sites
-Propellerads.com
-Rapidgator.net
-RARBG.to
-Rutracker.org
-Sci-Hub and LibGen
-Seasonvar.ru
-Shopee.sg
-Snapdeal.com
-Taobao.com
-Thepiratebay.org
-Tokopedia.com
-Torrentz2.eu
-Turbobit.net
-Uploaded.net
-Uptobox.com
-VK.com
-Warmane.com
