It’s going to be considerably harder to get that sweet, knock-off Louis Vuitton bag you’ve been eyeing, and you can thank the US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) for that. The agency reportedly seized control of some 130 websites last week in advance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to a report from The Register.
This mass takedown represents the largest individual effort under ICE’s “Operation In Our Sites” campaign. The majority of affected sites, all of which now redirect to the ICE-controlled Seizedzervers.com, were in the business of peddling alleged counterfeit goods. The place-holder page informs would-be buyers of the site’s takedown and reminds them that copyright infringement is a federal crime.
Of course, Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (today) are shopping holidays, shamelessly made up by retailers, which, to many Americans, represent the beginning of the US holiday consumer season.
The Register names three specific sites taken down by ICE, discount-louisvuitton-handbag.com, dvdsetonline.com, and googlenfljerseys.com.
Despite all 131 domains coming from the .com and .net arena, The Register claims all the addresses were registered to individuals in China.
