Consumers vs. Pirates

Everyone who has access to the Internet will soon be able to find out about how conscientious salespeople are and if counterfeit products are sold in stores. A database on all large commercial enterprises will be available starting January 1, 2004, said Nadezhda Nazina, head of the state trade inspectorate department of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, and chief state trade inspector of the Russian Federation.

According to Ms. Nazina, the database will be available not only to residents of large cities - the state inspectorate ordered its regional divisions to provide information on local sales outlets immediately following their inspection. The information includes names and addresses of retailers, violations of rules on commerce committed since the enterprise’s registration, and measures taken by the trade inspectorate against the violators.

“The information will come practically on a real-time basis, so that before making a major purchase, a television, for example, a consumer will be able to find out if there have been violations of trade rules by a sales outlet and if counterfeit products or goods of inferior quality have been sold there,” said the chief inspector. Moreover, if a consumer does not receive proper service in a store that is not included on the “blacklist,” then he or she is entitled to turn to a state trade inspectorate regional division. The division is then obliged to conduct a check and enter information on the results of the check into the database. The inspectorate believes that such measures will enable manufacturers to choose the most conscientious salespersons, and consumers will then be able to pick those retail outlets where they can buy quality products.

Ms. Nazina, however, admits that the creation of the database is a measure made necessary by the constantly rising number of commercial enterprises that sell counterfeit products. The state trade inspectorate has conducted about 3,000 checks since the beginning of this year, and violations of trade rules have been detected in 48 percent of the cases. In 2000, 62 percent of all CDs and tapes sold were pirate. The figure for 2002 is 66 percent, and it will obviously be higher in the future. The state trade inspectorate suggested that the inspection period be extended, and proposed to make experts legally responsible for the results of the work conducted. “It often happens that a few expert organizations come to entirely different conclusions and we just do not know what decision we should make, whether we should recall the product or authorize the sales,” the head of the department complained. According to Ms. Nazina, in such cases it is impossible to keep counterfeit products and goods of inferior quality away from the retail network. The sole hope is that an all-Russia database will enable the average consumer to get involved in this process. Consumers are unlikely to turn down an opportunity to get even with unfair salespersons. That is, of course, only if they resist the temptation to buy cheap pirated CDs and tapes from them.