Knockoff - Amazon & Etsy Shopping Filter szerző: Ordinary Systems

Amazon is flooded with trademark-squat "brands": random strings like SZHLUX, HORUSDY, and LATTOOK, registered at the USPTO purely to unlock Amazon Brand Registry. They sell commodity goods with no company, no warranty, and no reputation behind them.

Etsy has its own version of the problem: mass-produced catalog goods dressed up as handmade, sold by shops that never made anything.

Knockoff checks what you're actually buying, right in your search results. On Amazon it filters the pseudo-brand junk out; on Etsy it tags listings whose handmade story doesn't hold up.

Featured in Fast Company, Gizmodo, 404 Media, PC Gamer, Yahoo, and Lifehacker.

ON AMAZON
• Every listing's brand is appraised right in your results, and the junk is hidden, dimmed, or labeled, so what's left is brands with a reputation to lose.
• Brands are checked against a curated register of ~5,500 established brands, refreshed daily. Unknown names are scored on the linguistic signature of pseudo-brands: all-caps squat-length strings, vanishing vowels, unpronounceable consonant runs.
• Three filter levels: Relaxed, Standard, Strict. Your allowlist and blocklist override everything.
• Trust or block any brand in one click, right from the results, with one-click misclassification reporting that improves the shared lists for everyone.
• Optionally hide Amazon's paid "Sponsored" listings too (off by default).
• Also optional: hide Amazon's Alexa promos, from the homepage banners and "just ask Alexa" prompts to the self-opening assistant sidebar. Products that work with Alexa are untouched, and a panel holding your cart is never hidden.
• See where each seller is based, and hide listings from countries you pick.

ON ETSY
• A listing claims a maker. Knockoff reads that claim against the shop's own facts: its age, its sales pace, where orders really ship from, and whether the photos turn up on mass-market catalog listings.
• When the story doesn't hold up, the listing gets a tag in your search results, and opening it shows why. Nothing is hidden or reordered, and a page with no tags means nothing looked off.
• Etsy checking is something you turn on. One switch in settings covers Etsy and every shopping site we add next; Walmart and Shopify stores are coming.

WHAT THE PERMISSION PROMPT MEANS
Firefox's install prompt says Knockoff collects "website content" and "browsing activity". Here is exactly what each one is.

• Website content is what the extension reads to do its job: product titles, brand names, and seller IDs on the Amazon pages you shop, and, with Etsy turned on, a listing's own public shop facts. The brand appraisal itself runs locally in your browser; the seller country feature sends seller IDs so it can show where a seller is based.
• Browsing activity is one feature: Help pick US alternatives sends the Amazon product pages you open, so we know which products people want US alternatives for and can spot new junk brands on marketplaces the filter can't read yet. With Etsy turned on, the same switch also sends an Etsy listing's own public signals, so independent sightings can corroborate or clear it. A stored row records that a product was viewed N times, never who viewed it.

Both features are on by default, and both switch off in settings. Knockoff reads only the pages of the shopping sites it supports, and carries no code for anywhere else. No accounts, no profiles, nothing tied to you. Never sent: your searches, your orders, or anything you type into a page. Reports stay opt-in and anonymous. Full detail: knockoff.co/privacy

Free. Works on etsy.com and 23 Amazon marketplaces worldwide.