The European Commission wants to know if Temu has breached the Digital Services Act (DSA). Believe that the ecommerce platform of Chinese origin has violated five articles of the aforementioned regulations, which is why it has decided to open a formal investigation to determine if its suspicions are founded.
The file includes the alleged sale of illegal products, a potentially addictive service design, the systems used to recommend purchases and the obligation to give access to public data to the authorities. These are elements that have been part of several preliminary analyzes in recent months.
Temy and the Digital Services Law
Before announcing the start of the investigation, the European Commission analyzed the reports of risk assessment sent by Temu at the end of September this year. He also reviewed the internal documentation provided by the Chinese giant after two requests for information, the last on October 11.
The executive body of the European Union will focus on articles 27, 34, 35, 38 and 40 of the DSA. As they explain, the procedure will consider the mechanisms that the platform has to limit the presence and reappearance of non-permitted products, the risks of addictive design, including game-type reward programs, and the measures intended to mitigate this type of behavior.
In addition, they will study the way in which Temu recommends content and products to users. At this point, the company must disclose the parameters used for its recommendation system. Finally, the European Commission will evaluate compliance with a rule of the Digital Services Law that requires companies to facilitate access to public information for researchers.
If the company backed by Asian giant PDD Holdings, the conglomerate behind the e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, is found to have committed one or more violations, it faces fines that can reach 6% of its global annual turnover. In this sense, it would also be forced to modify its practices in order to continue operating in the European Union.
We have written to Temu to find out his position on the start of this investigation. They have told us that they take the DSA very seriously and that will cooperate with the authorities. Along these lines, they affirm that they are in talks to join the “Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the sale of counterfeit products on the internet”, a voluntary agreement facilitated by the European Commission.
“Counterfeiting is an industry-wide challenge, and we believe collaborative efforts are essential to advance our shared goals of protecting consumers and rights holders,” a spokesperson said. We will have to wait to know how this investigation will evolve. For now, Temu already has more than 90 million active users in the EU.
Images | TEMU | Sara Kurfess
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