AliExpress accused of violating EU digital rules on illegal goods

The European Commission has stated that the e-commerce marketplace AliExpress has violated its platform rules regarding the handling of illegal products, in preliminary findings on Wednesday, UNN writes with reference to Politico.

DetailsThe findings could lead to fines for the Chinese company, which is under close scrutiny by EU regulators over its compliance with the bloc’s new digital rules.

In its statement, the European Commission also stated that the company has come a long way in fulfilling its obligations under other parts of the Digital Services Act.

This law requires very large online platforms, one of which is AliExpress, to assess what risks it poses regarding the spread of illegal content or goods and how it will mitigate them.

AliExpress has failed to properly account for these risks and its content moderation systems demonstrate systemic failures, the European Commission said on Wednesday. It also stated that AliExpress does not apply its policies to merchants who sell illegal goods.

The European Commission has approved the company’s obligations in other areas of DSA compliance. These include monitoring the potential impact of goods sold on the platform on health, a system for reporting illegal goods, and an internal complaint handling system.

The European Commission also gave AliExpress approval for the changes made by the company in the transparency of its advertising and recommendation systems (which promote content to users) to improve the tracking of merchants and researchers’ access to public data.

They cover the “majority” of the European Commission’s concerns during the investigation, which was launched in March 2024, a European Commission representative said.

AliExpress will introduce a new internal monitoring system and will submit reports to an “independent monitoring trustee,” the European Commission said.

Following the decision on Wednesday, the EU executive is also making AliExpress’s commitments binding, meaning that future violations could lead to fines.

In particular, AliExpress has pledged to make changes to hidden links where illegal goods – often counterfeit brands – are hidden between “an image of a completely legal product,” how it vets influencers, and how it vets food supplements and medical goods. 

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