Action Alert
Don’t Let SHOP SAFE Shut Down Online Buying and Selling
SHOP SAFE will make it impossible to buy and sell used or independently created items online, all in the name of trademark protection
SHOP SAFE is an extremely flawed bill that would set up a series of hoops for anyone looking to buy or sell things online. It will mean you as a seller have to investigate where every item you are selling was made and to explain those measures to the website where you are listing the item. It will also mean having to provide all sorts of personal identifying information, including a copy of your driver’s license or other ID, in order to sell things.
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It will force any online service you are using to sell things to have automated filters, which can’t tell the difference between a used and counterfeit item, to take down listings. It requires those platforms to kick you off if you get three takedown requests in a year. All based on trademarks, which can be on just words, with no consideration of context to protect you.
It will force smaller platforms to take on a huge burden that Amazon can shoulder relatively easily and drive independent sellers offline. And it will allow overzealous brand owners to benefit from eliminating competition from resellers. Buyers will be left with a much smaller selection of things to buy and places to buy from, with the higher prices that come with that.
The House of Representatives has inserted SHOP SAFE into the 3,000-page America COMPETES Act, a trade bill that was recently passed in the House. But the good news is that SHOP SAFE isn’t in the already-passed Senate version of the bill, and we need it to be left out of the final bill. Tell your Senators that SHOP SAFE is bad for consumers and sellers of all kinds and to keep it out of the final version of the trade bill.
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Thank you,
Katharine Trendacosta
Activism Team
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