A counterfeit of your product is live on three marketplaces at once, and each one wants the complaint in a different format. File in the wrong channel and the report sits in a slow queue, or gets rejected for the wrong violation type, while the listing keeps selling. The three big reporting systems look interchangeable from the outside. They are not, and the differences are the whole job.
The rule is simple: match the filing to the right, not to the marketplace. Trademark infringement goes through the trademark channel. Copyright, which covers your product photos and listing copy, goes through the copyright channel. A listing that copies your photos is a copyright case even when the product itself is the problem, and that distinction is what gets it removed in a day instead of a week.
Brand Registry gives you the complaint tools and the Report a Violation portal, but it does not stop a seller from creating a new ASIN after a removal. Project Zero adds self-service removal and automated pattern scanning. Transparency is the strongest structural answer, because it requires each physical unit to carry a serialized code. Use Registry for reporting, Project Zero for speed, and Transparency for prevention.
Brand Registry is the entry point. Enrolling gives access to the complaint tools and the Report a Violation portal, plus search tools that surface listings using your brand. It does not prevent a bad actor from creating a new ASIN after their listing is removed. The complaint targets an ASIN, not the seller behind it, so the seller creates a new ASIN under a slightly different title, with the same product, and relists. That is the loop every brand owner knows: file, remove, relist, repeat.
Project Zero goes further. It adds a self-service removal tool and automated protections that scan for infringement patterns, and it is faster than manual complaint filing. But it does not stop the relist loop either. It shortens individual removal cycles, and its automated protections only act on patterns it already recognizes. A determined seller can still relist, and the tool cannot model an entity it has never seen.
Amazon enforcement is complaint-driven, ASIN-level, and reactive. The system asks whether this specific ASIN is violating a policy right now. It does not ask whether the seller entity behind it has done this before. There is no account-level penalty that sticks, and there is no cost to relisting. Filing a complaint is expensive for the victim and free for the bad actor, and that asymmetry is the whole problem.
The numbers make it concrete. Most platforms remove listings within 1 to 7 days of a clean complaint. For a product selling even 10 units a day, a 48 hour relist window puts 20 counterfeit units in customers hands before a second complaint is filed. Each one is a potential negative review, return, or chargeback that lands against your listing, not the bad actor. And there is no alert in Seller Central when a new seller appears on your ASIN, so most brands discover a relist from a customer complaint or a dip in conversion.
Transparency is the structural answer because it moves the check from the listing to the unit. Each physical product carries a serialized code, and Amazon checks it before the unit ships. A counterfeiter cannot fake the code at scale without access to your serialization, which is a much harder problem than copying a listing. It costs money and operational effort, which is why it is not the first step for most brands.
While you do not have it, run the loop properly. Monitor your ASINs, file on every relist, and keep the evidence pack for each one: the listing screenshots, the ASIN, the seller name, the dates. Report the seller entity, not just the ASIN, and escalate repeat offenders to Amazon legal with the pattern documented. The takedown is worth filing even when the product reappears, because a new ASIN loses the reviews of the old one, which makes shoppers less confident. The loop is a cost of doing business on the marketplace until the check moves to the unit.
Keep reading: Your Product Photos Are the Takedown: Copyright Notices for Stolen Images covers a nearby case in this series.
No. It gives you the tools to find and report infringing listings, but it does not prevent a seller from creating a new ASIN after a removal. Prevention needs Transparency or a similar unit-level check.
Self-service removal and automated pattern scanning. It is faster than manual complaints, but it still targets listings and recognized patterns, not the seller entity behind them.
Typically within 1 to 7 days for a clean, well documented complaint, and often within a day. Removal speed does not prevent the same listing from reappearing under a new ASIN.
Yes. A new ASIN starts with no reviews, which makes shoppers less confident, and each removal disrupts the seller's sales and payments for that ASIN. The loop is expensive for both sides, but it costs the seller the listing history every time.