This past Monday, November 26, 2012 marked “Cyber Monday,” a recently established tradition identified with the Monday following the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend, where consumers tend to escalate their online holiday shopping activities.
In what may become a related tradition, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) celebrated Cyber Monday by leading efforts to seize numerous websites that were allegedly selling counterfeit goods. The operation was dubbed “Operation Cyber Monday 3” and was conducted in connection with the global effort called “Project Transatlantic” to crack down on counterfeit goods sold online during the holiday shopping season. In all, 132 domain names were seized, and, in addition to the domain name seizures, officials are targeting numerous PayPal accounts utilized by the infringing websites for possible seizure of the illegally-generated proceeds.
U.S. ICE Press Release – Washington, D.C.