Woke up this morning to find 32 suspected intellectual property violations on our account, all apparently relating to the trademark "Swiftie" (which is a trademark owned by Taylor Swift).

Not a single one of these products (all novelty ceramic mugs) has any mention of the trademarked term ANYWHERE on the product or in the listing (including keywords etc.). Furthermore, none of these mugs even remotely relate to Taylor Swift or her brand which is clearly obvious from looking at them.

Many of the mugs do include the word "Taylor" and some contain a variation of the word (such as "Taylr", "Tayler" etc.) since we create mugs that refer to names of cities like "Taylor Falls" or mugs with first names and surnames on them. However, not a single one of these mugs has the word "Swift" or "Swiftie" in them and it is painfully obvious that they do not violate any intellectual property rights. As far as I can tell, Amazon's currently policy must be that Taylor Swift entirely owns and has exclusive rights to the name "Taylor" now which is completely absurd. This would mean that anyone named "Taylor", "Tayler", "Taylr" etc. who wanted to go to Amazon to buy a mug with their name on it or a person who wanted to buy a mug with their hometown on it (like "Taylor Falls") would have to buy a Taylor Swift mug (or nothing at all) which is absolutely insane and an unfair restriction on freedom of commerce.

Now I get to spend the whole day trying to deal with a problem that was created entirely by Amazon so that our selling account doesn't get suspended. Off to a great start as I sat on hold for more than 40 minutes waiting to speak to someone from the account health team (the recording said it was a less than 30 mins wait), only to have Amazon eventually disconnect the call on their end (which has happened so many times over the last couple years that it's not even funny).

To say that I am disappointed, disheartened and frustrated with the way Amazon treats smaller sellers like us would be a giant understatement...