A French industry group plans to file a complaint with prosecutors seeking damages from eBay and other Internet auction sites for the sale of counterfeit products on their Web pages, a Reuters report said.
The Reuters report, quoting Marc Antoine Jamet, chairman of France's Union of Manufacturers (Unifab), said that the complaint, due to be filed next month, also aims at forcing the sites to clamp down on product pirates.
'There is a continent which makes the fakes, which is China, and there is a continent where they are sold, and that is the Internet,' Jamet was quoted as saying.
Other auction sites in the firing line include those run by privately held iOffer.com, Yahoo and Japan's Rakuten, the Reuters report said.
But the main focus is eBay, with which Unifab has held more than a dozen meetings in the last two years, Jamet said.
eBay spokesman Hani Duzry said the company operates an anti-counterfeit goods program and constantly monitors auctions for blatantly infringing products and removes them, the report further said.