To be fair, Samsung had to scrap a whole phone model because of battery problems. The Boeing 787 suffered with problems of batteries catching fire (and according to some reports still does). It's a tricky problem to avoid.
Batteries are a different story because they're basically tiny plastic bombs. Somehow Samsung managed to deliver almost 15 years of Android phones before having their batteries catch fire, and that was almost certainly a result of skipping essential QA/Verification processes because they've never had a problem before.
I've also heard the opposite about Anker - that they always get the best quality.
Unless Amazon is currently testing products for lead before recommending them, which somehow I doubt, then the potential of a lawsuit against Amazon isn't actually protecting your child.
If Amazon's batteries start exploding, it's not quite the same magnitude. People will still shop at Whole Foods.
Admittedly a phone that explodes is a bad phone, but Samsung can still sell its "good phone" brand the same way Apple can still sell its laptops.
So I no longer have any certainty. Are Anker merely badge engineering some random white label product, or are Amazon / Anker just not caring or able to do anything about dozens of clear counterfeits?
My assumption would be that the same factory that makes Anker products is also selling the same designs to competitors - it's also possible that a different factory just cloned it.
Note that even if it's the same factory, they could have different quality control for different clients. So quality can differ even on identical designs.
So maybe Anker are uniquely incompetent in selecting suppliers. Not specifying in the contract with factories not to copy whatever widget they produce for Anker, not registering any of their designs. Yet aside from a) products within the same group ostensibly from different brands and b) same idea but clearly made by someone else, few other companies seem affected. They'll have a few products counterfeited. Not most. It's the sort of thing that might encourage you to be very careful on third, fourth and subsequent products.
I suppose it makes a case to avoid Anker and the identical copies, as clearly inept. Few other companies appear to be quite so afflicted. I'm not convinced it's the answer though. Outside the purely generic: white T shirts, tungsten light bulbs and such, you see very few precisely identical products.
You keep using the word counterfeit when it does not apply. Copyright is also not applicable unless there's a work of art printed on the product (like cell phone cases).
Most brands making commodity products don't get protection for the design, because the design isn't that unique. Search for "fast chargers for Samsung" and you'll see tons of chargers identical to the Samsung charger except with a different name. Same for Apple.
Examples:
https://www.amazon.com/Pantom-Adaptive-Charging-Compatible-S...
https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Charging-Charger-Compatible-...
https://www.amazon.com/Panmy-Foldable-Portable-Charging-Comp...
https://www.amazon.com/ByCallMax-Adapter-Original-Certified-...
Here's the EU's:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_design_rights_in_th...
Which protects "the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colours, shape, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation". It applies if they are novel and/or if they have unique character.
Its really not though, its just that between insurance and the courts its currently cheaper to enter products into the stream of commerce that will catch fire x% of times and hurt Y people costing $z, than it is to manufacture/supply/distribute/retail a product that won't catch fire in 100% of cases.
Hell even when z exceeds the cost of proper manufacturing, these companies are significantly more likely to spend money lobbying for changes to insurance and/or products liability litigation than fix the products to make the current formula work rather than spend more money on the cost of the product(s).
However, knock off products are usually worse, at least if you are burned by an exploding Samsung or die in a defective Boeing...you and/or your family will be compensated as these companies are identifiable and insured. If you are burned by an exploding knock off, odds are: 1) you won't even be able to identify the manufacturer or seller; 2) you won't have jurisdiction to sue the manufacturer or seller; and 3) they probably aren't insured and will just fold up shop and start anew.
If the company writing the checks can write checks to people who are going to cut corners, people will die. Full stop.