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¡Bienvenidos a nuestro blog de Derecho y Práctica de la Propiedad Intelectual en Latinoamérica!
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Monday 10 January 2022

Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo

[Guest Post] Mercado Libre’s second Transparency Report


IPTango is pleased to publish a guest post by Francisco Burguete, discussing the second Transparency Report published by Mercado Libre.

Mercado Libre (MELI) published its second Transparency Report, which covers data from January to June 2021 and includes a new section on user information requests (see here IPTango post on MELI’s first Transparency Report).

MELI emphasized that in the second report, “the scope of information available to users, authorities and civil society organizations has been expanded[, and for] the first time, information requests from authorities that are processed in compliance with the law are shared”.

Now, the Transparency Report comprises four main sections: user information requests (section one), product security and quality (section two), protection of IP rights (section three), and privacy matters (section four).


Product security and quality (Section 02)

This section contains information about removed content because of violations of MELI’s Terms and Conditions (T&C), such as offering prohibited items on the platform (e.g., items violating IP rights):

  • 267,461,670 listings were placed on MELI’s websites as of 30 June 2021 (compared to 331,607,978 listings in the first report).
  • 8,815,828 listings were detected and moderated by MELI due to violation of its Listing and Prohibited Items Policies (compared to 18,570,436 in the previous reporting period).
  • 53,173 listings were reported by users (compared to 112,424 in the previous report).
  • Top jurisdictions concerning detected listings regarding the violation of MELI’s Listing and Prohibited Items Policies:

Jurisdictions

Detected Listings (1st report, as of 31 December 2020)

Detected Listings (2nd report, as of 30 June 2021)

Brazil

13,283,854

4,013,453

Mexico

2,282,461

2,311,539

Colombia

1,371,060

1,240,494

Argentina

792,168

253,219

Chile

609,413

581,119

Uruguay

98,915

150,475

Peru

96,569

174,077

Rest of Latin America

35,996

91,452

  • Only 4.5% of detected listings were reactivated (compared to 3.12% of reactivated ads).
It should be noted that the second report contains the top main content infringing categories broken down per country. Meanwhile, the categories were classified only per product in the first report.


Protection of IP rights (Section 03)

In this section, MELI presents its Brand Protection Program (BPP), which “enable IPR holders to report infringing listings [via a Notice & Take Down -N&TD- procedure]”. MELI emphasized that they have developed “self-mapping tools, based on artificial intelligence, to “learn” from the notices received and proactively remove listings” that infringe IPRs.

  • 969,413 N&TDs were submitted (compared to 2,107,264 in the previous reporting period).
  • 56,432 counter-notices were submitted (compared to 104,661 in the first report).
  • The number of Proactive Detections and Confirmed Complaints:

Date

Proactive Detections

Confirmed Complaints

2021-1

1,322,070

159,409

2021-2

907,771

170,128

2021-3

1,558,342

206,285

2021-4

733,493

132,261

2021-5

760,860

117,082

2021-6

668,668

125,850


The English version of the second Transparency Report can be reviewed here. The Spanish version is available here.

In the past, IPTango interviewed Juan Cichero (Head of Brand Protection at MELI), who conversed about BPP, the N&TD procedure, and more. Read here the interview.

Credit: Image by athree23 from Pixabay.

Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo

Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo