Phishing Websites, Platform Automation and the Growing Cost of Scale
As we move through the early part of the year, a new set of enforcement challenges is coming into focus. While marketplaces continue to invest heavily in automation, recent activity highlights the growing trade-offs between speed, scale and accuracy.
This month we’ve seen a rise in phishing-adjacent website behaviour, increased friction across automated IP platforms, and widening gaps between infringement removal and retraction handling. Below, we break down the key trends shaping enforcement outcomes across marketplaces.
Phishing Websites and Image Search Abuse
We have seen a noticeable increase in customers discovering their products on unfamiliar websites through Google image reverse search and Google Lens. In many cases, the product image appears correctly in search results, but clicking through leads to a website in a completely unrelated sector, often with no product page, no checkout, and no obvious way to purchase.
This behaviour can occur for several reasons:
Image scraping for SEO manipulation
High-performing product images are scraped and embedded into unrelated pages purely to capture search traffic, with no intent to sell the product.
Expired or repurposed domains
Previously legitimate domains can retain historic search visibility after being acquired and repurposed for traffic farming, phishing or ad monetisation.
Cloaking and conditional rendering
Search engines may be shown product-related content, while real users see unrelated pages or minimal content once they click through.
Traffic resale and affiliate baiting
Images are used to attract clicks, which are then monetised through adverts or redirected to unrelated destinations.
Early-stage phishing infrastructure
In some cases, transactional pages are temporarily removed while payment or credential harvesting systems are rotated or rebuilt.
These sites create confusion for consumers and present a challenge for enforcement, as there is often no clear listing or transaction to report despite obvious misuse of brand imagery.
TikTok, Automation Pressure, and IPP Platform Changes
TikTok continues to create disruption for sellers as stores are deemed in violation of platform policies, while automated systems refuse to approve correct documentation. As a result, sellers have increasingly taken to posting communications publicly on LinkedIn, as TikTok’s own support channels rely heavily on automated responses.
It has now become clear that TikTok’s LinkedIn responses are also automated. Sellers are increasingly calling this out publicly, highlighting frustration with the lack of meaningful escalation paths. While often light-hearted, this reflects a broader confidence gap in platform support.
At the same time, TikTok has undergone significant internal platform changes as it incorporates Tokopedia’s IPP enforcement workflows into its own systems. This consolidation appears to be contributing to verification instability, particularly around rights holder authentication and document approval. Short-term disruption is likely while these systems bed in.
IPP Automation and Resubmission Fatigue
Across multiple marketplaces, IPP platform automation is introducing further delays into reporting workflows. We are seeing more resubmissions than usual, even for identical listings and clear IP infringements that have been successfully removed in previous months. A recurring pattern has emerged:
- Initial submissions are rejected without clear reasoning
- Identical reports are resubmitted
- Listings are then removed as expected
While automation is unavoidable given the sheer volume of reports marketplaces must process, this approach increases operational workload and introduces inconsistency. The risk is that genuine threats and repeat infringers are miscategorised, while enforcement teams spend time cycling through resubmissions rather than preventing harm.
Marketplaces, Enforcement Is Only Half the Problem
While removal speed remains a key metric, retractions are increasingly emerging as a weak point across marketplace enforcement systems.
TikTok remains unpredictable in its IP verification. Although a retract button exists, it is often greyed out once a removal is completed. Combined with limited human support, valid retraction requests frequently disappear without resolution.
Amazon continues to set the benchmark, for retraction responsiveness at least. Its automated retraction system is able to identify valid requests and reinstate listings efficiently, demonstrating how automation can work effectively when designed end-to-end.
Walmart remains one of the most efficient platforms for removing infringements, consistently maintaining fast takedown times. However, retractions can take up to three weeks, creating unnecessary downtime for legitimate sellers.
Other marketplaces rely heavily on email-based retraction processes, leading to highly variable response times depending on internal workflows and regional enforcement teams.
At IP Moat, retractions remain a very small percentage of activity. Our dashboard requires users to explicitly submit an infringement for removal, reducing false positives and limiting the need for reinstatements. As enforcement volumes continue to grow, precision at the reporting stage is becoming increasingly important.
Ecommerce marketplaces IP Infringement removal times
Key observations from this month include:
- TikTok Shop (USA): Removal times have increased, with TikTok Shop USA now sitting noticeably higher than other TikTok properties. While standard TikTok video takedowns remain relatively quick, marketplace-specific enforcement continues to introduce friction.
- Wish: Removal times remain elevated compared to most marketplaces, though broadly stable month-over-month. Despite sitting above the median, Wish continues to perform more consistently than several other long-tail platforms.
- Lazada: Persistently high average removal times, particularly across Southeast Asian territories. Lazada.ph stands out with significant delays. This continues to contrast sharply with AliExpress, which operates on a comparable IP platform yet maintains consistently low and improving response times.
- Amazon: Strong consistency across most regional domains, with the majority clustered around low average removal times. However, Amazon.sa remains an outlier, showing materially slower responses compared to other Amazon marketplaces.
- Noon & OnBuy: Both platforms show sharp spikes in average removal times this month, indicating potential backlog or process bottlenecks impacting enforcement efficiency.
- Walmart and Fruugo: Continue to lead on enforcement speed, maintaining average removal times under one day and showing minimal volatility month-to-month.
Marketplace Removal times by IP Types
Removal based on patents remains the shortest. However, it is worth noting that several marketplaces do not act upon patent infringement notifications. In these cases IP Moat would typically rely on trademark, copyright and other methods to remove infringing listings.
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