UK police take down fake designer goods sites

UK police have completed a massive take-down operation, after targeting scam websites selling fake designer goods. More than 1,200 counterfeit-slinging UK-registered websites were grounded as part of Operation Papworth - an operation led by the Metropolitan Police's Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) - which targeted scam websites in …

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to ...

... take a view along lines of "and about time too!" but then remembered that the internet and WWW is about 15 years old (in a public, wide appeal sense if we start from Windows 95).

Then corrected and checked myself under a view that 15 years of no reasonable police protection in cyberspace is probably about 150 years worth of no police on the streets.

Conclude: and about time too!

Y'know, if this technology is going to go anywhere then what should it's service level agreements be?

Yes! Go online get mugged and you can't do a thing about it? Hardy-har-har?

BTW: happy new year that will be 17.5% VAT (hee hee?)

[Marvin the Martian]

What's the logic here?

You spend 90% of your life on the internet and 10% outside, and think that's the average situation?

Only way you can get to the 1-internet-year-equals-10-street-years.

[blackworx]

You can't con a title out of me

It's cool that something's been done about it, but frankly if you're stupid enough to hand over your card details to conmen then you deserve everything you get.

Internet shopping has been around for ages now, meaning ignorance and naivete are fast becoming non-excuses, especially when the driving factor that causes people to disregard any reservations they'd normally have is simple - greed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ugg boots

Ugg boots look hidious under almost all circumstances, fake or real.

The *only* time they've ever had any redeming element was when I saw a 75-80 year old woman wearing them with a similarly colours coat, and she looked pretty well sorted.

On anybody under 60 they look revolting.

/rant

[Gordon Pryra]

Well done!!

They took down 1500 websites

but the 5 or 6 people behind the 1500 websites will just re-open them again in 2 minutes

[Buzzby]

Dumb & Dumber

Should have happened years ago! As usual no political will ( ignorance ).

[richard 69]

queer as folk

so people actually buy from:

www.tiffanydiamondsatcheapprices.com

www.thisisrealgearhonestguv.com

www.genuineguccihandbagforthepriceofabagofchips.com

???

how odd.

[stu 4]

@richard69

oh yes... remember. 50% of people are of below average intelligence.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a pedant and I don't care

...or 2%

...or 90%

...or 42%

...point being, I very much doubt it's exactly 50%. For example I alone drag the global average up by approximately 24.6354176%.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: 50% of people are of below average intelligence.

If by average you mean “Mean” then as I recall the stats - it is probably more than 50% below average (because those well above average people tend to have slightly more impact on figures than those well below average)

If A is brightest, B is 80% of A and C is 80% of B, average is 81% of A making C & B both below average of the group

[stu 4]

@ACs : don't fink so

I seem to remember the intelligence distribution to be a regular bell curve.

so the mean and the median will be pretty much the same.

hence, my 50% is accurate.

a quick google on 'bell curve intelligence' confirms.

However we don't really have to go there, IQ was defined as 100 being the average specifically as the 50% marker in the general populus.

stu

[Anonymous John]

It must be like painting the Forth Bridge.

Google on "Cheap Ugg boots" 11,800,000 hits!

"We got them all Sir!"

"Excellent!"

<Grunt>

"Harrison!"

[The BigYin]

Painting the Forth Bridge?

You mean they'll be finsihed in a few year? (new epoxy based paint y'see. Should be good for decades)

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much time on their hands...

I live in an area where your chances of seeing a policeman inside an hour of a serious crime are negligible - though the same plods seem to have unlimited time to make a thorough nuisance of themselves with motorists and perfectly well-behaved young people - especially those of variant colouring.

Fake designer goods isn't at the top of my priorities. I'm interested neither in the obscenely-price originals nor their shabby knockoffs - and most people buying such things are perfectly well aware of what they're buying in either case. There are three sides to this (not counting the police) - designer goods producers, counterfeiters, and an eternally gullible public. I have no sympathy for any of them, and I resent my tax pounds being spend on commercial protectionism.

Though it's nice to know our police have got time to serve their REAL masters - the commercial and media industries and their political rent boys.

Waste of time anyway - those sites or similar will be up again in a week - anyone daft enough to use them surely deserves all they get.

[Anonymous Coward]

Downvoted?

Whoever downvoted this guy wants to take a look at themselves.

[the spectacularly refined chap]

I don't notice any difference

ebay.co.uk is still up and running...

[Frank Fisher]

Hang on a minute....

Aren't we missing something? The police tell Nominet to take down 1500 websites (which by knocking out the domains is effectively what you do) and Nominet just do it?

Umm. Legal process? Courts? A warrant?

Any of this involved? Or are Nominet happy to do whatever a cop tells them to do?

Fine, these may well be fraudulent sites but... what's next?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Frank Fisher

what, you mean the police might have acted without due regard for the law? No, that could never happen - next thing you'll be saying politicians have been cheating on expenses, or agreeing to European treaties that they promised to put to referendum ....

[Ben Rosenthal]

I was also

expecting some sort of ebay story :D

[adam payne]

Just the tip of the iceberg

I'm glad the Police have taken down these sites but 1200 is just the tip of the iceberg. There are thousands if not millions of these fake sites out there. When one get the plug pulled on it they can usually getting more running in a couple of days.

I don't know what the solution is but they should start with tightening up domain registration.