VERO is UNVERIFIED and abused by Mark Monitor

[89imax]

Ebay Motors sellers are probably aware that Mark Monitor, the dishonest intellectual property “protection” firm has picked up Subaru Motors USA as a client, and are currently in a campaign to have all listings which include the word “Subaru”, in the BODY or title, removed from Ebay via fraudulent VERO complaints.

Mark Monitor gets paid based on the number of listings they have cancelled.

Several things to remember:

When a VERO complaint is filed, the wording at the top of the form reads:
“I swear under penalty of perjury that the following is true…”
Mark Monitor is filing complaints that they are not certain of:
Mark Monitor: “…we felt that the listings violated eBay policy…”
“Felt” is not the same level of certainty as “sworn under penalty of perjury”.

Ebay DOES NOT review or verify that the listings violate the complainant’s trademark. Ebay does not even verify that the content of the listing is related to the complainant’s trademark:
Ebay VERO: “eBay hasn't inspected your item and we're not experts in the rights of third parties, so we're not qualified to decide whether your item infringed the intellectual property rights of this rights owner.”

Ebay rubber stamps those unverified complaints:
Ebay VERO: “We are legally obliged to take action when we receive such written notice from a rights owner.”

There is no appeal:
Ebay VERO: “…we are not able to appeal any violations ourselves.”
Ebay VERO: “…we can not restore any of the removed listings…”
Ebay VERO: “If you think your listing was wrongly removed, please contact them (Mark Monitor) directly…”

Mark Monitor WILL NOT respond to emails from the victims of their harassment. I have unanswered emails to Mark Monitor from September 17, 2014, when they went on a campaign to remove the words “Hyundai”, “Nissan”, and “Infiniti” from all Ebay listing content.

Ebay will not take action when Mark Monitor refuses to respond:
Ebay VERO: “Although most VeRO participants are willing to respond to a polite email, please be aware that they aren't obligated to reply.”

Yesterday, I received a notification that a group of my listings had been pulled by Ebay as a result of a VERO complaint filed by Mark Monitor, on behalf of Subaru Motors USA, which did not contain the world “Subaru” or names of any Subaru products in the title or description of the listing. I ran down the list of trademark filings in the US Patent and Trademark TES database and verified that none of the content was covered by (or even related to) any live or dead trademarks held by Subaru Motors USA.

These facts, of course do not matter to Ebay, because, as already pointed out. Ebay rubber stamps every VERO complaint, do not verify anything, and refuse to entertain the protests of sellers being victimized by Mark Monitor’s abuse of the VERO program.

In short, Mark Monitor is filing false VERO complaints and abusing the VERO system. This is depriving sellers of the ability to sell the items of those legal listings, and is subjecting wrongfully accused and persecuted sellers to the “throttleing back” of seller visibility and sales on the Ebay platform.

Ebay knows it.

And Ebay refuses to do anything about it.

[dqdnvwe0]

You're not telling me anything new.

We had run-ins with the Dupont corporation over the word Kevlar(tm), the trademark belongs to them and that seems reasonable enough... Therefore if your listing includes the word Kevlar(tm) there is a good chance it will be violated. The kicker however is that's even if the product you're selling was in fact made by Dupont.

Worse however...

Even if you wanted to make a simple correction such as removing the offensive word...

You can't!!!

The listing is gone!

By the time you get the message it's too late.

And no, nobody at ebay cares.

All they ever do is refer you back to the policy and point out paragraphs of information.

You know, in case you didn't read it the first time.

They react to every complaint the same way.

I will say this...

You can write black-and-white to that corporation outside of this system to let them know how you feel about their internet policing, in my case I let them know I would be sure to never purchase another product made by the Dupont corporation whether it had Kevlar(tm) in it or not.

I do not see how this is helping their sales.

But...

They do not seem to care.

[luckythewinner]

Ebay refuses to do anything about it because Congress wrote a law saying that "doing something about it" would expose them to more liability than "not doing something about it". 

As a website owner. the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives eBay "safe harbor" to avoid liability for infringing content posted by a website user.

In order to get that safe harbor protection, eBay must remove the content immediately upon reciving a notice of claimed infringement (NOCI) from an alleged IP property owner.

eBay is discouraged from attempting to validate the legitimacy of the NOCI ... Congress made it very clear in the law that it is up to the IP owner and the website user to hash it out for themselves. If eBay were to make a determination about the NOCI, it would remove their liability waiver.

Aside from negotiating directly with the IP owner, you can also file a counter-notice to the NOCI, which challenges the IP owner to initiate court proceedings or agree to let the content be reinstated. (But eBay is not necessarily obligated to restore the content even if the IP owner backs down after receiving a counter-notice.)

[89imax]

Interesting that none of the involved parties in the 6+ years that I have experienced this have ever mentioned a "counter notice".

I ran down some search results, and on a page titled "VERO" (https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/listing-and-marketing/verified-rights-owner-program.html#m22_tb...), they mention "17 U.S.C. section 512(g)(3)", leading to:

https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512

In previous discussions, Ebay reps stated that those two categories are vastly different, copyright is appeal able, and they claimed trademark was not.

That page does mention "trademark" but not in 17 U.S.C. section 512(g)(3).

Can you confirm that this is applicable to trademark?

[luckythewinner]

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@89imax wrote:

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Interesting that none of the involved parties in the 6+ years that I have experienced this have ever mentioned a "counter notice".

As you pointed out, eBay already mentions it on their help pages for VERO. And I doubt the person filing the VERO NOCI would go out of their way to notify you about. I'm not sure what other parties you may have been involved with. 

Can you confirm that this is applicable to trademark?

No I cannot; I have never filed one. I did not realize that eBay's help page made a distinction between copyright and trademark - but it could not hurt to try.

[89imax]

The stonewall answer from Ebay's representatives, way back when you could actually email "customer support", before they all hid behind an impenetrable curtain, was that trademark takedowns were final, could not be appealed, and that was the end of it.  A whole lot of "can't-be-done".

Way back when the internet was egalitarian, before they shifted all the rules to shaft the little guy like every other area of life, a DMCA takedown could be responded to with an appeal, and that forced the accuser to take-it-to-court-or-shut-up.  VERO was presented as completely different and removing any possible appeal.

I am not finding any surprise in the lie, because that is what Ebay does best.

I am still concerned that the mention that is well hidden in the Ebay trademark pages points to an external website specific to copyright.

I am also concerned that the entry in that legal code for what a counter notice must contain, does not provide any indication of who or where that counter notice is supposed to be submitted to.

I began requesting the trademark serial number from vero@ebay.com, which Mark Monitor alleges was infringed, on those non-Subaru listings they had cancelled.  The Verified Owners Rights is supposed to be attached to a live, active, filed trademark.  The filer has to disclose the serial number of their active trademark.  The VERO complaints are supposed to be directly related to that trademark.  In that Mark Monitor is running takedowns, on behalf of Subaru, for listings which do not contain any reference to "Subaru", it seems pretty relevant to the discussion exactly what trademark they are "enforcing".  All of my requests for that serial number have been responded to by Ebay staff with a cut-and-paste response that I am supposed to negotiate with Mark Monitor, (the abuser).

I filled out a counter notice according to the form, emailed it to both vero@ebay.com and legal@ebay.com, and have received no response.  And when I sent this same counter notice via the Ebay message system to Ebay (responding to the most recent cut-and-paste response), they suddenly stopped the cut-and-paste responses, and have gone completely silent.

I am to the point that I am considering filing preemptive counter notices on every listing I have, on a weekly basis, to prevent anyone from messing with them.

[luckythewinner]

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I began requesting the trademark serial number from vero@ebay.com, which Mark Monitor alleges was infringed

The DMCA makes it very clear that it is your job to contact teh VERO member directly. eBay is not expected to be an expert in Subaru's copyrights, and they are not your advocate or your messenger service. 

All of my requests for that serial number have been responded to by Ebay staff with a cut-and-paste response that I am supposed to negotiate with Mark Monitor, (the abuser).

That is good advice, because that is what you are supposed to do. 

I filled out a counter notice according to the form, emailed it to both vero@ebay.com and legal@ebay.com, and have received no response.

I am not surprised, because the VERO page does not suggest they will reply to you. 

"Once we receive a valid counter notice, we'll provide a copy of the notice to the VeRO participant and inform them that the listings will be reinstated after 10 business days if they don't inform us that they have filed an action seeking a court order to restrain you from relisting the items. "

How long ago did you submit it? 

Also remember that (leaving VERO completely to the side), eBay can theoretically take down your listing for any reason they want, and can also refuse to reinstate it after a counter-notice if they feel like it. Why? Because that is what you agreed to in the eBay User Agreement:  

"Additionally, we reserve the right to refuse, modify, or terminate all or part of our Services to anyone for any reason at our discretion."

[89imax]

Mark Monitor refuses to respond.

The serial number of the trademark filed with the VERO program should be public record.

In addition, none of the notice includes any indication of which mark or the reason for claimed violation of that mark.

To top it all off, Ebay VERO just responded with the same claim that there is no appeal for trademark based listing removals with this response that directly contradicts the Ebay trademark page we have been discussing:

If you want a list of the trademark information that was given for the removal of your items you will want to contact the right's owner directly.

It appears that this listing was removed due to trademark infringement concerns. In this case, filing a Counter-Notice is not an option.

We urge you to contact the VeRO participant directly at the email address that was provided previously. If the VeRO participant determines the listing was removed in error they can contact eBay directly on your behalf and notify eBay of the error.

[myjunqueyourtreasure]

So are you saying, no-one can list anything with the word Subaru now thanks to this person?

Wonder if he takes down listings for Hot Wheels Subaru cars? LOL

[rfmtm]

To be specific, the DCMA law, which eBay's Vero is based on, applies to copyright violations only. Authenticity, trademark, or patent abuse are not covered by the DMCA prohibitions for mandatory web site removal. It's eBay's own policy that extends the DMCA-like behavior to this. The downside is that as a result you don't get the DMCA-mandated remedies, which includes a legally recognized counter notice to file against people who abuse Vero.

This still does not prevent you from filing in your local federal court against those that abuse the law and restrict fair trade.  Go here for some good information:

http://www.rickdrew.com/fighting_ebay_VERO_DMCA_takedown.htm

[a_c_green]

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@89imax wrote:

Yesterday, I received a notification that a group of my listings had been pulled by Ebay as a result of a VERO complaint filed by Mark Monitor, on behalf of Subaru Motors USA, which did not contain the world “Subaru” or names of any Subaru products in the title or description of the listing.

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What were the items that they removed?

[luckythewinner]

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@89imax wrote:

Mark Monitor refuses to respond.

The serial number of the trademark filed with the VERO program should be public record.

In addition, none of the notice includes any indication of which mark or the reason for claimed violation of that mark.

To top it all off, Ebay VERO just responded with the same claim that there is no appeal for trademark based listing removals with this response that directly contradicts the Ebay trademark page we have been discussing:

If you want a list of the trademark information that was given for the removal of your items you will want to contact the right's owner directly.

It appears that this listing was removed due to trademark infringement concerns. In this case, filing a Counter-Notice is not an option.

We urge you to contact the VeRO participant directly at the email address that was provided previously. If the VeRO participant determines the listing was removed in error they can contact eBay directly on your behalf and notify eBay of the error.

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So it sounds like you are out of luck then, if Mark Monitor refuses to work with you. 

You could try contacting Subaru's PR and/or legal department and explaining how Mark Monitor is failing to properly represent the company and making them look bad. 

You could even contact your local TV news and see if they have a consumer advocate intersting in making a story out of your case. 

[luckythewinner]

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@myjunqueyourtreasure wrote:
So are you saying, no-one can list anything with the word Subaru now thanks to this person?

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No one has suggested that no one can list anything with the word Subaru.

In fact a quick search shows 4.1 million listings that contain the word Subaru - so that is clearly not the case. 

The OP has never told us exactly what the items were.  Perhaps knowing what those items were would help us shed some light on what Mark Monitor is objecting to. 

[dqdnvwe0]

First things first...

Please understand I am in no way denying how you feel, believe me one thing:

I know, oh yes I do.

But truth be known...

I do not believe Mark Monitor is a real person, the name sounds too much like an alias especially considering the role this (to me fictional) character represents... If the character is in fact real (which I doubt) then they really didn't think about the kind of impact such an idiotic name is bound to make on the end user.

No...

I believe they did think about the impact, wanted it to be exactly what you are feeling and created the alias for that purpose and also so the real players can all hide behind their screen of anonymity which further confirms they knew the end user (or victim) would likely be none too happy.

Reminds me a lot of many a big corporate PR department.

If you ask me, that is not a really good way of doing things.

But they don't care.

Further I believe not only does this Mark Monitor not exist, but the entity that performs the VeRO policing is in fact a software-driven bot, everything you are experiencing has been orchestrated without human intervention, other than someone originally had to design the software.

Therefore...

I believe fighting these people won't get you anywhere and ultimately will only cost you tens of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees and the only possible outcomes are:

1. You lose, nothing happens.

2. You win, and still nothing happens.

3. You win and the corporation has to basically make changes which amounts to them flicking their pinky finger at the software. Oh the effort, oh the agony, they still won't care an iota more than they do now, the people responsible don't even know the attorney that will fight their case for them, they won't even have to show up in court (and rest assured, they won't).

So ...

Little good will come of it, you will only grow older and frustrated.

It's just not worth it, I doubt you'd even get some personal satisfaction.

I mean maybe a little, but really?

I believe your best bet would be to create a full backup of each and every listing you host on ebay.

That way anytime they pull a stunt and DELETE your hard work WHAMBAM!!!?

You have it backed up and can recreate it either here or elsewhere with far less effort than what this thread has taken so far.

At least that is where I put my energy the last time they pulled that Cyprinidae on us.

They can completely violate my whole account and totally obliterate everything.

I have my back ups, here on my PC, every single last listing.

Yes sir.

[berserkerplanet]

MarkMonitor - Clarivate Analytics | Brand Protection, Domain ...
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MarkMonitor is the global leader in online brand protection. Experts in Domain Management, Anti Counterfeiting, Anti Piracy, Partner Compliance and Phishing...

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