Germany: Fakeshop-Finder

The Fake Shop Finder is an AI-powered web tool that enables consumers to check the legitimacy of online shops in seconds. By entering a shop’s URL, users receive an instant assessment of whether it is likely to be a fraudulent site. This helps citizens to protect themselves against goods or credit card fraud, as well as identity theft. The system relies on a network of crawlers that continually scan the internet for suspicious websites with a focus on German-language websites. These websites are analysed using machine learning to assess technical and content-based indicators of fraud. AI-driven cluster detection ensures that the tool becomes more accurate over time.

The ECPA jury’s assessment of Germany’s “Fakeshop-Finder” was clearly positive, recognising it as a strong technical response to the growing problem of e-commerce fraud. While machine learning itself is not unique, the jury considered its application in this context novel and well aligned with EU consumer needs. The tool’s ability to identify suspicious online shops with a high degree of accuracy, supported by verification controls, was seen as a major strength. They described the project as technically innovative, though this sophistication may make it difficult to replicate directly. Nevertheless, the jury emphasised that it offers valuable lessons for developing similar consumer-protection tools elsewhere. One minor drawback noted was that the system is not fully automatic; its effectiveness depends on users actively choosing to run website checks. Despite this limitation, the jury viewed the tool as a meaningful contribution to preventing online shopping fraud. Although no formal outcome evaluation has yet been carried out, the jury considered the project likely to be effective based on its strong theoretical foundation and the quality of the technical approach.