EU Commission: AliExpress violates European law on digital services
The Commission considers that the Chinese e-commerce giant breached its obligation under the European Digital Services Act (DSA) to assess and mitigate the risks associated with the dissemination of illegal products
2' min read
2' min read
Following an in-depth investigation opened on 14 March 2024, the European Commission has taken the preliminary view that the Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress (of the Alibaba group) breached its obligation under the European Digital Services Act (DSA) to assess and mitigate the risks associated with the dissemination of illegal products. The Commission announced this in a note. The EU executive also accepted and made binding a series of commitments proposed by AliExpress to solve a number of problems, such as the platform's transparency on advertising and recommendation systems.
This is 'one of the most expensive investigations opened against a very large online platform', explained a Commission official, recalling that the formal proceedings initiated a year ago under the DSA covered several areas.
Today, the Commission adopted two decisions. With the first one, it accepted a set of commitments offered by AliExpress to address some of the critical issues identified, including the platform's systems for monitoring and detecting illegal products; the notification and intervention mechanism for reporting illegal products; the internal complaint handling system; the transparency of advertising and recommendation systems; the traceability of merchants on services; and access to public data for researchers. These commitments are legally binding, so any breach would immediately result in a violation of the DSA, triggering sanctions.
In the second decision, the Berlaymont Palace made a preliminary finding that the e-commerce giant had breached its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products, such as counterfeit products or products that do not comply with European safety standards. Several aspects were challenged by the EU Commission, including the inadequate application of its sanctions policy against merchants who repeatedly publish illegal content. Systemic shortcomings in AliExpress' proactive content moderation systems that allow manipulation by malicious traders were also noted. Should the Commission's preliminary opinion be confirmed, a non-compliance decision would be adopted, resulting in a sanction. Moreover, the non-compliance decision would oblige the AliExpress provider to submit an action plan to remedy the infringement within a specific deadline.
