Questions and answers about AntiClone

AntiCloneBot reads your shop once, the way any visitor sees it: the home page and, for Shopify shops, the public product list with up to 250 products (the first check in the app compares up to 100 products). Then AntiClone compares it with every shop in the index. It compares:

• your product names, product texts and image files
• the title and text of your home page
• the contact details on your home page (email, phone, VAT ID), only as an irreversible fingerprint
• for Shopify, the ID of your shop and your shop files, which also give away a copy on someone else's server

Products sold by many independent shops do not count here. That way resellers of the same brand do not appear as a copy. From launch, the app adds the search for similar domains; the comparison of your photos by image content comes with Pro.

You usually get the report within 24 hours of clicking the link in the confirmation email. The comparison itself takes less than a minute. In the pre-launch phase, however, a person reads every report before it goes out. With many requests it can therefore take a little longer.

Which shops in the index show content from your shop, each with what matches, for example “12 of your product titles” or “shows your company details”. We name up to ten shops. If the comparison finds nothing, the report says that too. We only send the report with findings to an address at your shop domain, for example name@yourshop.com, or to the address in your legal notice (Impressum). To other addresses we send a short message about this instead of the findings. If you have questions about the report, simply reply to the email.

If the robots.txt of your shop blocks AntiCloneBot, or the shop does not respond, the report says so. Then reply to the email, and we will look at your shop by hand.

No. For the first check, the address of your shop, your email address and your shop platform are enough. We need no password and no installation, and we see no customer or order data.

Until launch you pay nothing: the first check is free and comes with no obligation, there is no subscription, and you do not enter any payment details. The prices for permanent monitoring only apply from launch: Basis then costs $39, Pro $99 and Enterprise $299 per month or $390, $990 and $2,990 per year, billed through your Shopify invoice and cancellable at the end of the paid period. All features and prices

You get a single message as soon as AntiClone launches for your shop platform. Whether you then install it and choose a plan is up to you. Nothing happens unless you act, and there are no costs.

The first check does. The radar recognizes shops on Shopify, WooCommerce, Shopware, Magento, PrestaShop, JTL, Gambio and other platforms, and copies of your shop can run on any of them. For Shopify shops, the first check also reads the public product list. For other platforms it mainly compares your home page and your contact details.

The app with permanent monitoring, early warning and reports launches as a Shopify app. For other shop platforms you will get a message as soon as it starts there.

We store your email address, the address of your shop, your shop platform and the language, plus the times of sign-up, confirmation and report. We use them only for the first check and one message at launch, never for advertising or a newsletter. Without confirmation we delete the details after 30 days. You can unsubscribe at any time through the link in the confirmation email, and then we delete your sign-up immediately. Everything about this in the privacy policy

No. The app only requests read access to your products from Shopify. It does not see customers or orders. It does not store product descriptions in full, but as a text fingerprint and a few distinctive sentences for the text search.

Only technical features of online shops: domain, shop platform, page title, file names of images, text fingerprints and image fingerprints of product photos. It stores contact details and product titles only as an irreversible hash. It does not keep websites that are not shops. The entries are stored permanently, because only the oldest entry proves which shop was there first. If you run a website and want us to delete its entries, write to us.

In the first check, the report names shops that show content from your shop, with everything that matches. If one of them is neither yours nor one of your resellers, reply to the email and we will look at it together. Nothing is reported without your consent.

From launch, every finding lands in your overview in the app. From Basis on, you see it with a priority score and the original and the copy side by side; the free first check shows per site only whether a possible copy was found. You decide whether to open a case. You enter your own domains and those of your resellers as allowed, and then they no longer show up.

As rarely as possible. Notifications always appear in the app. You only get e-mails if you switch them on in the settings, where you also pick which ones. Then only things you need to act on are emailed right away: a possible copy is waiting for your confirmation, or AntiClone rejects a confirmed case. Everything else, such as reports sent, sites offline and expired deadlines, is collected in a weekly report on Monday, and it only comes if something happened that week. There is no advertising and no newsletter.

No. A match means: this site shows content from your shop. A shop can also sell the same products lawfully. The priority score says how urgently it is worth a look, not how likely fraud is. AntiClone does not call any site fraud. It shows the evidence, and you decide.

The web crawler of the radar. It reads publicly accessible websites the way any visitor sees them and recognizes the online shops among them.

• no logins, no forms, no orders, no payment details
• no tests for security vulnerabilities
• it follows the rules a website sets for crawlers and slows down when the site asks it to

Everything about AntiCloneBot

With two lines in the robots.txt of your website. You do not need to send us a message for this.

User-agent: AntiCloneBot
Disallow: /

1. Prove: For every open case, AntiClone secures both views of the site with real browser screenshots, page source and server responses, plus registrar and hosting provider, all with a timestamp and checksum. You download the PDF report and the ZIP with all evidence once AntiClone has reviewed your confirmed case.
2. Prepare: A finished report is ready for every route: hosting provider under Art. 16 DSA, Cloudflare through its abuse form, registrar, Google Safe Browsing, Google Search for cloaking, payment providers, and Shopify if the copy runs there.
3. Confirm: You look at the copy with all the evidence and confirm it with one click. AntiClone checks the case and then sends the reports in your name to the hosting provider and registrar, with you in copy and the check report attached. If the site is still online after your deadline (4 days unless you set something else), AntiClone writes to the payment providers. Replies go directly to you. Where a recipient only accepts a form with a captcha or a login, such as Google or Cloudflare, the text for it is ready and waiting, and you submit it yourself.
4. Follow up: AntiClone checks every 30 minutes whether the site can still be reached, for 90 days. It is only offline when two checks at least one hour apart confirm it. If it comes back, you are told.

Cases with reports are available from launch with Basis (5 cases per month), Pro or Enterprise (both unlimited). All routes at a glance

Nobody can promise that: whether and when a site disappears is decided by hosting providers, registrars, platforms and payment providers. AntiClone makes sure every recipient gets complete evidence, and tells you as soon as the site is gone.

No. A report is only sent once you have granted the authorization and confirmed a site as a copy with one click. Then AntiClone checks the case and sends the reports in your name, and you get a copy of each one.