When customers search for your brand online, they expect to find you. But sometimes, what they find instead is a fake version. A fake website, a counterfeit product, or an offer you never approved.
This is the alarming reality brands face today.
A brand’s value lies in the unique identity and reputation it builds with customers over time. They create digital representations that are instantly recognizable and trusted. However, that very identity is increasingly being misused by others for unethical and fraudulent gain.
Brand infringement isn’t just about copied logos or trademark infringements anymore. It is now more prominent across marketplaces, social media, and other platforms designed to closely mimic genuine brands.
What makes this challenge even more complex is how it unfolds if left unchecked — directly impacting customer trust, revenue, and long-term brand equity.
Hence, the need to understand what is brand infringement, its types (to be able to identify immediately), and how to keep your brand protected from such threats.
Let’s dig in.
What is Brand Infringement?
Brand infringement refers to unauthorized use of any brand’s trademarked assets, like logo, name, ads, creatives, domain name, products, or any other branding elements. The only goal is to create confusion, harm brand identity, or sell counterfeit products or services.
In simple terms, if someone uses your brand identity to mislead customers, divert traffic, or profit unfairly, it comes under the umbrella term of brand infringement.
Moreover, due to the expansion of ecommerce marketplaces, complex paid media ecosystems, social commerce, and AI-generated content over the years, it has become a much bigger challenge in 2026. Brand infringement today spreads faster, looks more authentic, and causes damage long before brands can react manually.
Common Types of Brand Infringement
With digitalization, violators have developed multiple ways to deceive the audience. Below are the most common forms of brand infringement brands face today:
Trademark Infringement
It is one of the most common forms of infringement. Trademark infringement occurs when a third party uses a brand’s registered name, logo, slogan, visual identity or a combination of the same that a company uses to distinguish its products, solutions, or services from others.
Example: An admin of a Facebook group using the name of a legit travel brand without their permission to earn bookings.
Read more to know how to protect your brand from domain infringement.
Brand Impersonation
Brand impersonation is when fraudsters pose themselves as genuine brands using fake websites, emails, messages, or accounts to deceive customers into transacting money, sharing personal data, or sensitive information.
Example: A fake customer website claiming to represent banks, airlines, or ecommerce brands to scam users.
Counterfeit Fraud
Another type of brand infringement, counterfeit fraud involves selling fake or duplicate products on various marketplaces under a brand’s name without authorization, often mimicking original packaging, design, and branding to appear genuine to customers.
Example: Fraudsters listing and selling duplicate products of a luxury brand like Gucci, Prada, etc. on ecommerce marketplaces.
Copyright Infringement
It is another major form of brand infringement. Copyright infringement involves unauthorized use of the original expressions and ideas of another seller. Violators produce counterfeit products or other assets that are visually identical to assets of an existing brand, created with no knowledge of the original brand.
Example: Websites or sellers copying a brand’s product descriptions, blogs, videos, or marketing creatives to appear legitimate or improve visibility without authorization.
Typosquatting
Typosquatting occurs when infringers register domain names (also known as domain squatting) that are slight misspellings or variations of a brand’s official website to mislead users and redirect them to fake websites, counterfeit products, or scam pages.
Example: Fake websites with domain names amaz0n.com selling duplicate products under original brand name.
Cybersquatting
Cybersquatting involves registering or using domain names that include a brand’s trademark with the intent to profit from it, often by reselling the domain, running ads, or redirecting traffic for commercial gain.
Paid Media & Search Infringement
Paid media infringement happens when third parties misuse a brand’s name or trademark in online ads to divert traffic, inflate ad costs, or mislead users into visiting unauthorized or deceptive landing pages.
Example: Affiliates bidding on brand keywords in search ads and redirecting users to competing websites or fake promotional pages.
App Infringement
App infringement is when fraudsters make fake or misleading mobile applications using a brand name, logo, or identity to trick users into downloading apps, sharing personal information, and making transactions.
Example: Malicious apps claiming to offer rewards, cashback, or services under a well-known brand’s name.
Social Media Infringement
Social media infringement includes fake brand accounts, unauthorized influencer promotions, or misleading giveaways that misuse brand identity to gain followers, engagement, or financial benefits without brand’s approval.
Example: Fake Instagram accounts running giveaways using brand logos and visuals to collect personal information from users.
The various forms of brand infringement call for high awareness of a brand’s digital surroundings, strict vigilance, and proactive brand protection practices.
Get your complete social media brand protection checklist.
How to Prevent Brand Infringement?
In 2026, brand protection is no longer about reacting to individual incidents; it requires a structured, proactive, and continuous approach.
Secure Your Brand Foundations
The first step to prevention is ownership and clarity. Brands must ensure their trademarks are registered across key markets and categories, especially where they actively operate or plan to expand. Alongside trademarks, owning critical domain variations and safeguarding brand assets such as logos, creatives, and messaging helps reduce opportunities for misuse at the source.
Without strong foundational control, enforcement becomes difficult and inconsistent.
Maintain Control Over Your Digital Presence
Brands today operate across marketplaces, apps, search engines, and social platforms. Enrolling in marketplace brand protection programs, verifying official social media accounts, and maintaining clear ownership of apps, landing pages, and customer touchpoints ensures customers can easily distinguish between genuine and fake brand interactions.
This visibility also makes it easier to identify misuse early.
Educate Internal Teams and External Partners
Brand protection is a shared responsibility. Marketing teams, ecommerce managers, affiliates, agencies, and resellers all play a role. Clear brand usage guidelines, regular monitoring of affiliate activity, and internal awareness of common infringement tactics help prevent accidental or intentional misuse.
Brands can also partner with trade associations that work closely with regulatory agencies like NAFDAC and SON, who are empowered by law to apprehend and prosecute counterfeiters.
Well-informed teams reduce both internal risk and external exposure.
Build Clear Enforcement Strategies
When brand infringement occurs, speed matters. Brands should define clear processes for identifying issues, validating them, and escalating action, whether through platform takedowns, partner warnings, or legal routes. Maintaining documentation and evidence ensures faster response and higher takedown success.
Effective prevention works best when brand protection becomes an ongoing operational process, not a one-time legal task.
Leverage a Brand Protection Solution for Continuous Monitoring
Given the scale and speed of digital platforms, manual monitoring is no longer sufficient. A brand protection solution helps brands continuously monitor their digital presence across websites, marketplaces, ads, social platforms, and apps.
It enables early identification of brand misuse, such as fake websites, impersonation accounts, misleading ads, or unauthorized promotions, often before customers are impacted. This proactive visibility allows brands to respond faster, reduce damage, and maintain control over their digital identity in an increasingly complex online ecosystem.
Know what to look for in a brand protection solution and how it works here.
Conclusion
A brand’s identity is its most valuable asset. To keep it safe, the path for brands is clear. Move from reactive enforcement to continuous brand protection.
Since the challenge of brand infringement is ongoing, the detection strategy needs to be an ongoing process too. Hence, the need for an advanced brand protection solution to proactively monitor, detect, and act against misuse before it impacts customers and revenue.
If you want to understand where your brand is most vulnerable and how to safeguard it across digital channels, connect with our brand protection experts to explore a proactive, scalable approach to protecting your brand in 2026 and beyond.
FAQs
How can I tell if my brand is being infringed online?
You may see lookalike domain names, unauthorized sellers on marketplaces, paid ads targeting your brand keywords, copied website content, or social accounts using your logo. Monitoring these channels regularly helps catch misuse early.
What are the common examples of brand infringement?
Common examples include counterfeit products sold under your brand name, fake websites or domains mimicking your brand, misleading ads using your trademarks, unauthorized social accounts, and copied content or creatives.
What is the impact of brand infringement?
Brand infringement can lead to revenue loss, customer confusion, and damage to brand reputation. It often results in counterfeit sales, inflated marketing costs, negative customer experiences, and long-term erosion of trust and brand equity if left unaddressed.
