The INFORM Consumers Act and Etsy Sellers: How Identity Verification Changes Your IP Exposure in 2026

You got the email from Etsy: "Confirm your seller information." Maybe you uploaded your ID, entered your tax number, and moved on without thinking twice. After all, it looked like routine platform housekeeping.

It was not routine. That verification request exists because of a federal law called the INFORM Consumers Act, and it fundamentally changes how exposed you are when someone files an intellectual property complaint against your shop — or decides to sue you.

Most Etsy sellers treat identity verification as a minor inconvenience. The reality is that it creates a direct legal pipeline between your real identity and anyone who wants to take action against you for alleged trademark or copyright infringement. Understanding what the INFORM Act actually requires, what information Etsy now holds about you, and how rights holders can access it is no longer optional knowledge for serious sellers.

This guide breaks down exactly what the INFORM Act means for your IP risk profile and what you should do about it.

What the INFORM Consumers Act Actually Is

The INFORM Consumers Act became federal law in the United States on June 27, 2023, as part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act. It requires online marketplaces — including Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Walmart Marketplace, and others — to collect, verify, and in some cases disclose the identity of high-volume third-party sellers.

The law was designed to combat the sale of stolen, counterfeit, and unsafe goods online. Congress passed it after years of pressure from brick-and-mortar retailers and brand owners who argued that anonymous online sellers were flooding marketplaces with infringing products and disappearing before anyone could hold them accountable.

The Federal Trade Commission enforces the INFORM Act and has the authority to impose penalties on marketplaces that fail to comply.

Who Qualifies as a High-Volume Seller on Etsy

The INFORM Act defines a "high-volume third-party seller" as anyone who, in a 12-month period, completes 200 or more transactions on the platform resulting in $5,000 or more in gross revenue.

If you are a full-time or even a moderately successful part-time Etsy seller, you almost certainly meet this threshold. A shop selling $20 digital downloads needs just 250 sales in a year to qualify. A print-on-demand seller moving $25 t-shirts hits it at 200 orders.

Once you cross the threshold, Etsy is legally required to collect and verify the following information within 10 days:

• Your full legal name (or the name of the individual acting on behalf of a business entity)
• Your physical address — a PO Box is not sufficient under the law
• A working phone number and email address
• A government-issued ID or, for businesses, a government-issued record or tax document showing the business name and address
• Your bank account information (the account that receives Etsy payouts)
• Your tax identification number (SSN or EIN in the US)

Etsy must re-verify this information at least once per year, and annually notify you that your contact information will be disclosed to consumers who request it if you meet the higher $20,000 annual revenue threshold.

The Part Most Sellers Miss: Consumer Disclosure

Here is where the INFORM Act intersects directly with intellectual property risk.

Under the law, if you are a high-volume seller generating $20,000 or more in annual gross revenue, Etsy is required to provide a way for consumers to report suspicious activity and to disclose certain seller information upon request. Your name (or business name), physical address, and contact information may be made available.

This means that a brand owner or rights holder who wants to identify who is behind an Etsy shop selling allegedly infringing products no longer needs to file a subpoena or a John Doe lawsuit to unmask you. The marketplace itself is required to make your identity accessible under specific conditions.

For sellers who previously operated behind a shop name with no public-facing identity, this is a significant shift.

How This Changes IP Complaint Dynamics

Before the INFORM Act, the typical IP enforcement sequence looked like this:

1. Brand owner spots an allegedly infringing listing
2. Brand files an IP complaint through Etsy's reporting system
3. Etsy removes the listing and sends the seller a notice
4. If the brand wanted to pursue legal action, they had to subpoena Etsy for seller identity — a process that could take months

The INFORM Act compresses and simplifies this pipeline. A brand owner or their attorney can now more readily identify who you are, where you are located, and how to serve you with legal process. The anonymous shield that many small sellers relied on — intentionally or not — has been significantly weakened.

This has practical consequences across several IP enforcement scenarios.

Cease-and-Desist Letters

Previously, brands that wanted to send a cease-and-desist letter to an Etsy seller often had to send it through Etsy's messaging system or file a formal complaint. Now, with verified physical addresses on file and mechanisms to request seller information, a brand's attorney can send a formal cease-and-desist directly to your home or business address.

A cease-and-desist that arrives at your home address on law firm letterhead is psychologically and legally different from a message in your Etsy inbox. It creates a documented paper trail showing you were put on notice of the alleged infringement, which matters if the dispute escalates to litigation.

Schedule A Trademark Lawsuits

Schedule A lawsuits — the mass trademark infringement cases filed in federal courts (primarily in the Northern District of Illinois) that target dozens or hundreds of online sellers at once — have become the single most feared legal threat for Etsy sellers in 2026.

The INFORM Act makes these lawsuits more efficient for plaintiffs. With verified seller identities, the plaintiff's attorney can more easily:

• Confirm the real names and addresses of target sellers
• Serve legal process without the delays of third-party subpoenas
• Argue to the court that the defendants are real, identifiable parties (not anonymous accounts that might be in foreign jurisdictions beyond the court's reach)
• Seek asset freezes with greater confidence that the frozen funds belong to an identified individual

If you have been following the wave of Schedule A cases targeting Etsy and Amazon sellers, the INFORM Act is one of the reasons these cases have become more prevalent. Lower identification costs mean more lawsuits are economically viable for brand owners.

DMCA Subpoenas

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a copyright holder can issue a DMCA subpoena to compel a service provider to identify an alleged infringer. Before the INFORM Act, Etsy might have limited verified information to provide. Now, Etsy holds government-verified identity documents for every high-volume seller, making DMCA subpoena responses more complete and actionable.

International Sellers Are Not Exempt

If you sell on Etsy from outside the United States, you might assume the INFORM Act does not apply to you. That assumption is wrong.

The law applies to any seller who makes sales to US consumers through a US-based online marketplace. Etsy is a US company, and the vast majority of its buyer base is in the US. If you are selling on Etsy.com and making sales to US buyers, you are subject to the INFORM Act's requirements.

Etsy has been rolling out identity verification globally, and international sellers who cross the high-volume threshold are required to provide equivalent identity documentation. This means a seller in the UK, Germany, Australia, or the Philippines who crosses 200 transactions and $5,000 in US sales must provide a government-issued ID, physical address, and tax information.

For international sellers, this creates additional IP exposure. A US brand owner can now identify a seller in another country with verified information, making cross-border IP enforcement more practical — whether through international cease-and-desist letters, requests under mutual legal assistance treaties, or customs enforcement actions.

What Information Etsy Can Share — and With Whom

The INFORM Act creates several disclosure pathways:

Consumer reporting: Etsy must provide a way for consumers to report suspicious marketplace activity, including suspected IP infringement. This is separate from Etsy's existing IP complaint system and adds another channel through which your information can be flagged.

Law enforcement requests: Etsy must respond to law enforcement requests for seller information. With verified identity data on file, these responses are now more complete and useful to investigators.

Annual disclosure notifications: If you cross $20,000 in annual gross revenue, Etsy must notify you annually that your contact information may be disclosed to consumers who request it. This is not optional — the marketplace is required to make this information available.

Court orders and subpoenas: With government-verified identity documents on file, responses to court orders and subpoenas now include verified data rather than whatever self-reported information a seller originally entered when opening their shop.

The Privacy Tradeoff for IP Protection

There is an uncomfortable tension at the heart of the INFORM Act for Etsy sellers concerned about intellectual property.

On one hand, the law makes it easier for brands to enforce their rights against sellers who genuinely are selling counterfeit or infringing products. If someone is running a shop full of unauthorized Disney designs, making it easier to identify and stop them is arguably a good outcome.

On the other hand, the same mechanisms expose legitimate sellers to increased risk. A false IP complaint — filed by a competitor, a trademark troll, or a brand owner who does not understand fair use or nominative fair use — now has a faster path to your real identity and a potential lawsuit at your doorstep.

This is especially concerning given how imprecise Etsy's IP complaint system can be. Etsy does not adjudicate IP disputes. When a rights holder files a complaint, Etsy removes the listing first and asks questions later. If the complaint is invalid, the burden falls entirely on the seller to file a counter-notice, dispute the claim, or fight back. The INFORM Act does not add any protections for sellers who are wrongly targeted.

Five Steps to Protect Yourself Under the INFORM Act

1. Know What Information Etsy Has About You

Log in to your Etsy account and review your legal and financial information settings. Understand exactly what identity documents you have provided and what information is on file. If you provided your home address, that is the address that could be disclosed or used for service of process.

2. Consider a Business Entity

If you are operating as a sole proprietor using your personal name and home address, the INFORM Act means your personal information is your business information. Forming an LLC or other business entity gives you a layer of separation. Your business name and registered agent address become the public-facing information, rather than your personal name and home address.

This does not make you immune to lawsuits, but it does provide a degree of privacy and can simplify your legal response if you ever face an IP claim. Many states allow you to form an LLC for under $200, and you can use a registered agent service to provide a business address.

3. Audit Your Shop for IP Risks — Before Someone Else Does

The INFORM Act makes the cost of being wrong about IP compliance higher than ever. When your identity is verified and your information is accessible, you lose the practical obscurity that might have previously discouraged a brand from pursuing a complaint beyond the initial takedown.

Go through every active listing in your shop and ask:

• Does this listing use any trademarked terms in the title, tags, or description?
• Does this design incorporate any copyrighted elements I did not create or license?
• Am I using brand names for SEO purposes (even in the "compatible with" or "inspired by" form)?
• Could any design element be confused with a well-known brand's trade dress?

Remove or revise anything that creates risk. The time to do this is before a complaint is filed, not after.

4. Set Up a Trademark Monitoring Routine

If you have original designs and a brand name worth protecting, the INFORM Act works in your favor too. You can use the same mechanisms to identify sellers who are copying your work. Set up regular searches for your designs on Etsy, Amazon, and other platforms. If you find infringers, the INFORM Act means the platform has verified identity information that makes enforcement more practical.

Consider registering your own trademarks and copyrights. The cost of a federal trademark registration (around $250-$350 per class) is modest compared to the legal exposure of operating without one.

5. Have a Response Plan Before You Need One

Do not wait for an IP complaint or a lawsuit to figure out what you would do. Have a plan in place:

• Know how to file a counter-notice if you receive an unjustified DMCA or trademark complaint
• Have an IP attorney identified (even if you have not retained one yet) so you are not scrambling to find representation under time pressure
• Keep records of your original work — design files with timestamps, purchase receipts for commercial licenses, and documentation of your creative process
• Understand the timeline — once a DMCA counter-notice is filed, the complainant has 10 to 14 business days to file a lawsuit or the listing is restored
• Save funds for legal defense — if you are a high-volume seller, consider setting aside a small percentage of revenue as a legal reserve

The INFORM Act and Etsy's Broader 2026 Compliance Push

The INFORM Act is not happening in isolation. Etsy has been tightening compliance across multiple dimensions in 2026:

• New seller ID and selfie verification through Persona for all new shops, not just high-volume sellers
• Stricter creativity standards requiring original designs for products made with computerized tools like 3D printers and Cricut machines
• Increased listing removals — Etsy's own transparency reports show that policy-violation removals have doubled and handmade policy removals have quadrupled
• Updated payments policies with new verification checks and disbursement rules

The overall direction is clear: Etsy is moving toward full identity transparency for sellers. The era of anonymous selling on the platform is ending. For IP compliance, this means the stakes for every listing in your shop are higher than they have ever been.

The Bottom Line

The INFORM Consumers Act is not just a box-checking exercise. It is a structural change in how online marketplace sellers are identified, verified, and exposed to legal action. For Etsy sellers, it means that every IP decision you make — from the keywords in your listing titles to the designs on your products — carries consequences that can now reach your real-world identity faster and more directly than ever before.

The sellers who treat this as a wake-up call and proactively clean up their shops, establish business entities, and build IP defense systems will be better positioned than those who ignore it until a complaint lands in their mailbox.

If you want to scan your shop for IP risks before a brand owner or their attorney does it for you, ShieldMyShop's free trial lets you check your listings for trademark conflicts and flag potential problems before they become complaints. Prevention is always cheaper than defense.

Take control of your IP compliance. ShieldMyShop scans your Etsy listings for trademark and copyright risks before they become problems — whether that is an IP complaint, a Schedule A lawsuit, or a cease-and-desist at your front door. Start your free trial today and protect your shop before someone else finds the risk first.