Merchants cannot sell fake branded products, knockoffs, or any goods that copy another company's trademark, logo, or design without authorization.
This analysis describes what Shopify's agreement states, permits, or reserves. It does not constitute a legal determination about enforceability. Regulatory applicability and practical outcomes may vary by jurisdiction, enforcement context, and individual circumstances. Read our methodology
This clause establishes a contractual requirement that restricts the categories of goods permissible for sale on the platform. The restriction operates as a condition on use of Shopify's infrastructure and payment processing systems, requiring merchants to verify compliance with intellectual property law.
This clause is intended to protect consumers from purchasing counterfeit goods through Shopify stores, though enforcement depends on brand owners reporting violations and Shopify acting on those reports, which may not catch all counterfeit listings proactively.
How other platforms handle this
You may not automatedly crawl or query the Services for any purpose or by any means (including, without limitation, screen and database scraping, spiders, robots, crawlers and any other automated activity with the purpose of obtaining information from the Services) unless you have received prior exp...
relate to transactions involving (f) the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory or the financial exploitation of a crime... (i) involve offering or receiving payments for the purpose of bribery or corruption.
You must not, and must not allow others to: Facilitate illegal or harmful activity through the End User Services; Cause harm to us or others through the End User Services;
Monitoring
Shopify has changed this document before.
Receive same-day alerts, structured change summaries, and monitoring for up to 25 platforms.
"Counterfeit or unauthorized goods: You may not use Shopify's Services to sell, purchase, or facilitate the sale of counterfeit goods or goods that infringe on another's intellectual property rights, including goods with unauthorized use of a trademarked brand name, logo, or design.— Excerpt from Shopify's Shopify Acceptable Use Policy
(1) REGULATORY FRAMEWORK: This provision engages the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §§ 1114, 1125) on trademark infringement and counterfeiting, the Trademark Counterfeiting Act (18 U.S.C. § 2320) for criminal liability, the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 501) for copyright infringement, and DMCA notice-and-takedown procedures (17 U.S.C. § 512). The INFORM Consumers Act (effective June 2023) requires Shopify to collect and verify seller identity information, supporting IP enforcement. CBP regulations on counterfeit import interdiction (19 C.F.R. § 133) are indirectly relevant. Enforcement authority: CBP, DOJ, brand owners via civil litigation. (2)
Full compliance analysis
Regulatory citations, enforcement risk, and due diligence action items.
Free: track 1 platform + weekly digest. Monitor: 25 platforms + same-day alerts. No credit card required.
Compliance Governance Intelligence
Need to monitor specific governance provisions?
Compliance includes provision-level monitoring, governance timelines, regulatory mapping, and audit-ready analysis.
Built from archived source documents, structured governance mappings, and historical version tracking.
This clause establishes a contractual requirement that restricts the categories of goods permissible for sale on the platform. The restriction operates as a condition on use of Shopify's infrastructure and payment processing systems, requiring merchants to verify compliance with intellectual property law.
This clause is intended to protect consumers from purchasing counterfeit goods through Shopify stores, though enforcement depends on brand owners reporting violations and Shopify acting on those reports, which may not catch all counterfeit listings proactively.
ConductAtlas has identified this type of provision across 1 platforms. See the full comparison.
No. ConductAtlas is an independent monitoring service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Shopify.