Luxury firms step up fight against fakes sold online

Paris

IT TOOK luxury-goods makers about a decade to realise that the Internet represented an opportunity. Now, they're finally figuring out it's also a threat.

As companies from LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE to Kering SA increasingly sell online, top brands are stepping up efforts to combat Web sales of counterfeit and grey-market goods.

Gucci owner Kering sued China's largest e-commerce operator for allegedly facilitating the sale of dodgy products. UK handbag maker Mulberry Group plc and others use technology to take down links to websites selling fakes.

The push comes as a new generation of consumers turn to social media to shop as well as to show off, and as criminals target the same bona fide customers as luxury-goods makers themselves. A…