ENFORCEMENT
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Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator<br />
as well the development of “repeat infringer”<br />
policies to address notorious or serial, bad faith<br />
offenders. Platforms should explore and adopt<br />
mechanisms that may facilitate the effective<br />
reporting of clear IP-related abuses of their<br />
services, while protecting the rights of users to<br />
use those platforms for non-infringing and other<br />
lawful activities. One underutilized resource<br />
may be the users themselves, who may be in a<br />
position to report suspicious product offerings<br />
or other illicit activity, if provided a streamlined<br />
opportunity to do so, as some social media<br />
companies are beginning to explore.<br />
ACTION NO. 2.14: Encourage the<br />
development of “know your seller” programs for<br />
social media channels engaged in e-commerce.<br />
In order to minimize the exploitation of a site’s<br />
services and platforms by entities engaged in the<br />
sale of counterfeit goods, social media platforms<br />
could consider requiring new sellers using the<br />
social media platform to submit to a multi-factor<br />
verification system or other mechanism to support<br />
a “trusted” seller and advertiser program.<br />
4. Support Practices and Policies to Reduce<br />
Intellectual Property Infringement Facilitated<br />
by Mobile Apps.<br />
Mobile applications (apps) have changed the way people<br />
communicate and access, share, and interact with<br />
information. More than 3 billion people, or 44 percent of<br />
the world’s population, will access the Internet in 2016—<br />
and two billion of them will use only mobile devices<br />
to do so. 61 As more people access creative content,<br />
e-commerce, financial services, and lifestyle services from<br />
FIG. 40: Mobile App Usage on the Rise. 63<br />
Mobile applications user in millions<br />
300<br />
250<br />
200<br />
150<br />
100<br />
50<br />
0<br />
38.7<br />
69.1<br />
100.4<br />
136.3<br />
174.9<br />
2009 2010 2011 2012* 2013* 2014* 2015*<br />
their smartphones and tablets, mobile app downloads<br />
and engagement is expected to continue to increase<br />
exponentially. Indeed, a recent study reported that overall<br />
app usage grew by 58 percent in 2015. 62<br />
Millions of apps currently exist in today’s mobile app<br />
market, and with 1,000 new apps added daily, the mobile<br />
apps market continues to thrive. 65 The same low entry<br />
barriers that catalyze innovation also make mobile apps<br />
an attractive outlet for illicit IP-related activity, including:<br />
counterfeit apps, such as fake antivirus, browsers, and<br />
games; 66 apps filled with content stripped from another<br />
app or site without authorization; 67 and apps that illegally<br />
stream copyrighted content such as hit TV shows or<br />
movies. 68 A fake version of the popular “Angry Birds”<br />
game, for example, was reported to contain harmful<br />
malware in the form of a “Trojan horse” virus. 69<br />
The growth of illicit apps must be viewed in the<br />
larger context of opportunistic, cyber-based illicit<br />
activity. Whereas developers make money from apps<br />
by pushing advertisements to users, online criminals<br />
may install mobile ad software development kits in<br />
their fake copies so they receive the revenue instead of<br />
the original developers, and they may insert malicious<br />
code that can result in harm to the user. 70<br />
FIG. 4I: Example of Fake App That Extracts Account Data. 71<br />
255.9<br />
Source: Symantec<br />
Despite efforts to screen for potential infringing<br />
apps, 72 consumers continue to have access to illicit apps.<br />
This is in part because when an illicit app is taken down,<br />
a new one often takes its place, app developers find new<br />
avenues to distribute the app, or existing downloads are<br />
Source: Statista 64 not necessarily disabled. 73<br />
213.9<br />
SECTION 2<br />
73