Ebay: fake wine, the cause in France

The direct sales between individuals through eBay has long provided opportunities for the exchange of wines, but the scoop of these days is the stock of fake labels of Mouton Rothschild that Armand Aramian would have ordered from China to sell them on eBay.

Ebay has defended itself citing its programs to protect intellectual property and trademarks, including the “Verified Rights Owner Program”. This case highlights a serious problem for industry operators: the possibility that the chain of worldwide fake wine forms a system through digital technologies.

The Aramian case raised an important issue considering that one–fifth of wine in the world would be forged, according to estimates by Michael Egan. Of course, this number is not empirically verifiable, Egan pointed out that the market of fake wine tends to thrive in countries where the culture of wine is not present, but where demand is growing rapidly.