＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
When I was a child, I remember hearing a radio commercial for watches, gems, and jewelry that said, “Purchase this item at a department store or a trustworthy specialty store.”
The products sold at discount stores and festival stalls were priced as second-rate, fake, or knock-off goods, so even a child wouldn’t be fooled.
However, in recent years, online shopping sites, which are not brick-and-mortar stores, have become popular, making it possible to purchase any type of product online.
The major sites are Amazon, Rakuten, and Yahoo! Shopping, but companies that previously focused on catalog sales, as well as online shops of manufacturers and department stores, are also setting up online shopping sites.
1. Amazon’s AI was fooled by fake luxury brands
I previously wrote an article titled “Overconfidence in AI is dangerous,” but it was discovered that Amazon’s AI inspection system had missed fake branded products (imitations) made by some sellers.
According to a report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in April of this year, “Amazon is letting counterfeit goods of major brands run wild.”
The screening process for “seller registration” is less strict than on other online shopping sites, and fraudulent listings by unscrupulous businesses are concentrated on Amazon.
It seems that Amazon is using AI to authenticate luxury brand items to save labor. While it is fine to use AI as a first-stage judgment, adopting it as the final judgment and calling it an “Amazon recommended product” (Amazon’s Choice) seems to be highly problematic.
It is true that many people will find the price too low for a genuine product to be “suspicious,” but I think many people will be fooled if it is called an “Amazon recommended product.” This could ultimately lead to people saying that they are “aiding and abetting fraud.”
The problem of “fake luxury brand goods” is a serious issue that is not limited to the online market. Recently, fake goods have become more sophisticated, and even experts are finding it difficult to tell the difference.
2. “AI” and the appraisal of “luxury brand goods”
As we all know, appraising the authenticity of art such as paintings and antiques, as well as jewels, can be quite a difficult task.
As for “luxury brand goods,” the “AI” is likely memorizing the judgment points for several check items, but just as fraud crimes are becoming more and more sophisticated, I think counterfeits are evolving to become more and more like the real thing.
In the end, I think the only way to judge an item is to have an experienced person look at it and touch it. I think it is necessary to be careful enough to get advice from a specialist who checks luxury brand items at customs, or to have a person at the manufacturer check it directly.
3. The laxity of Amazon’s inspections
However, there is no guarantee that “Yahoo Shopping” or “Rakuten” are safe. The measures that buyers can take are limited. One option is to purchase at “a department store or a reliable specialty store.” However, there was an incident in 1964 where counterfeit calligraphy and pottery by Kitaoji Rosanjin were sold at Shirokiya, so it cannot be said to be foolproof.
Surely it’s time for online retailers to think about how to combat counterfeit luxury brand goods as an industry as a whole?
On October 9th, Amazon Japan announced that it had launched “Project Zero” on Amazon.co.jp, which aims to eradicate counterfeit goods. In addition to using machine learning to detect suspected counterfeit goods, the project will give participating companies the authority to remove any counterfeit goods they find, and will put in place a system to remove them quickly.
4. Background and countermeasures for the sudden increase in counterfeit goods
It seems that the sale of counterfeit goods is increasing rapidly on internet auction and flea market sites.
The general incorporated association “Union des Fabricants (UDF)” (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo), which aims to eliminate counterfeit products, received removal requests from manufacturers and brands, which increased dramatically from just over 90,000 in 2015 to over 1 million in 2017. As measures were strengthened, the number of requests decreased to just over 320,000 in 2018, but as of the end of January 2019, the number was apparently on the rise again, reaching just over 850,000.
It is widely believed that behind this is organized listings from overseas, mainly from China. It’s a game of “whack-a-mole,” but the Chinese government often claims that “if damage caused by counterfeit goods occurs overseas, domestic law cannot crack down on them,” and the Japanese government also seems to be struggling to respond.