Chinese online giant AliExpress must do more to protect consumers from illegal product sales, the European Commission said, an interim finding that could open the way to heavy fines.
While noting some progress, “the Commission preliminarily found AliExpress in breach of its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products” under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a statement said on June 18.
The EU opened a formal investigation in March 2024 into AliExpress, owned by Alibaba, for multiple suspected breaches of DSA rules on countering the spread of illegal goods and content online.
The EC’s preliminary findings concluded that “AliExpress fails to appropriately enforce its penalty policy concerning traders that repeatedly post illegal content”.
It also highlighted “systemic failures” in AliExpress’ moderation systems that exposed it to “manipulation by malicious traders”.
Those findings were “in breach of the obligations” that the DSA imposed on very large platforms – such as AliExpress, Facebook and Instagram – with more than 45 million monthly European users, the EC said.
AliExpress now has the right to examine the EC’s findings and reply in writing, according to AFP.
If the firm is confirmed to be in non-compliance with the DSA, the EC could impose a fine of up to 6 per cent of its global turnover.
In a statement, AliExpress said it remained “dedicated to compliance with the DSA” and was “confident that a positive and compliant result will be achieved through continuing our mutual dialogue with the Commission”.
The EU took action against AliExpress after identifying likely failings to prevent the sale of fake medicines, prevent minors seeing pornography, stop affiliated influencers pushing illegal products, and other issues including data access for researchers.
In its statement on June 18, the EC said AliExpress had taken a series of legally binding measures to remedy those concerns, Reuters reported.
Steps included improvements to its systems for detecting illegal products such as medicines and pornographic material, notably goods spread through hidden links and affiliate programmes.
The EC also said AliExpress had addressed concerns regarding the flagging of illegal products, the handling of internal complaints, ad transparency, the traceability of traders and research access to data.
But AliExpress could still face a fine, with the EC saying the company underestimated the risk of disseminating illegal products and did not enforce its penalties against traders that posted illegal content.
AliExpress has the right to reply to these preliminary findings.
“We have proactively engaged and closely collaborated with the European Commission throughout this process from the outset, and we will continue to do so,” the company said in a statement.
“We are confident that a positive and compliant result will be achieved through continuing our mutual dialogue with the Commission to address any remaining concerns.”
The European Consumer Organisation BEUC welcomed the EC’s announcement, urging it to “pursue AliExpress in the areas where it is still not complying with the law, such as on its proactive efforts to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous goods on its platform”.
Brussels was also looking into Chinese-founded fashion giant Shein and shopping app Temu over risks linked to illegal products.
