cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/52742292
Temu was hit with a 200 million euro ($232 million) fine Thursday after a European Union investigation found the Chinese online retailer failed to protect consumers from illegal products like toxic or hazardous toys and unsafe electronics.
The 27-nation EU’s fine follows preliminary findings last year that Temu was exposing consumers to a high risk of products sold on its platform like baby toys and small electronics that didn’t comply with EU consumer safety rules.
The bloc’s executive arm issued the penalty under the Digital Services Act, or DSA, a wide-ranging rulebook that requires online platforms to do more to keep internet users safe from harmful content or dodgy goods, under the threat of hefty fines.
It’s the second time Brussels has issued a fine under three-year-old DSA, following a $120 million penalty last year for Elon Musk’s social media site X.
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The European Commission said Temu failed to identify, analyze and assess the systemic risks of illegal goods for sale on the platform and the resulting harm to European consumers.
Investigators had carried out a “mystery shopping exercise” that turned up a number of “non-compliant” products, including many electronic device chargers that failed basic safety tests. They also found a very high percentage of baby toys that posed safety risks, either because they contained chemicals at levels that exceeded safety limits or because they had parts that came off and could be a suffocation risk.
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Risk assessments are “not box‐ticking exercises,” European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkunnen said.
“Temu’s risk assessment underestimates concrete risks, lacks specificity, is not grounded in solid evidence, and is not comprehensive,” she said in a prepared statement. “It leaves regulators, users, and the public in the dark about the true scale of potential harm posed by illegal products sold on Temu. Now it is time for Temu to comply with the law.”
Temu has until the end of August to submit an “action plan” to remedy the problem. It could be hit with additional daily, weekly or monthly fines if it fails to comply.
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