Abstract: The claimed subject matter relates to an architecture to produce disincentives to wearing counterfeit or stolen merchandise in public. In particular, the architecture utilizes a unique identifier associated with each unit of the product, and provides both a registration channel for receiving ownership registration and a verification channel to receive requests for verification. By way of illustration, the architecture can include associating a brand logotype that includes unique markings with each unit of a product, a private web service where the retailer may upload customer information at the time of sale, and a publicly available web service, where a third party may inquire about the ownership of a product containing a certain unique identifier.