A French industry group plans to file a complaint with prosecutors seeking damages from eBay and other Internet auction sites for the sale of counterfeit products on their Web pages, a Reuters report said.
The report, quoting Marc Antoine Jamet, chairman of France's Union of Manufacturers (Unifab), said the complaint, due to be filed next month, also aimed to force the sites to clamp down on product pirates.
"There is a continent which makes the fakes, which is China, and there is a continent where they are sold, and that is the Internet," Jamet was quoted as saying.
Other auction sites in the firing line included those run by privately held iOffer.com, Yahoo and Japan's Rakuten, the report said.
But the main focus was eBay, with which Unifab had held more than a dozen meetings in the last two years, Jamet said.
eBay spokesman Hani Duzry said the company operated an anti-counterfeit goods program and constantly monitored auctions for blatantly infringing products and removed them, the report further said.