Amazon ordered to stop luring customers based on misspelled searches for Birkenstock

A court in Germany has told Amazon.com that it can no longer use search terms to lure in customers who misspell “Birkenstock,” according to Reuters.

The German sandal maker filed an injunction, complaining that the online retailer had been using variations on its brand name, such as “Brikenstock”, “Birkenstok”, and “Bierkenstock” on Google’s Adwords. Birkenstock alleges that by luring in customers with keywords, it’s potentially selling counterfeit sandals, possibly damaging the company’s reputation. Amazon told Reuters that it works “diligently with vendors, sellers, and rights owners to detect and prevent fraudulent products [from] reaching our marketplace.”

Reuters notes that the company has severed ties with Amazon in Europe and in the US because the retailer has “failed to proactively prevent” the sale of fakes.

The retailer is concerned about low-quality copies of its footwear: it devotes a page of its website to the issue, saying that all of its products are manufactured in Germany, and recommends that prospective customers go only to authorized retailers.