Chinese marketplace Temu under scanner for breaching EU’s Digital Services Act

LONDON: The European consumer organisation on Thursday filed a complaint against Chinese online marketplace Temu for failing to protect consumers by breaching the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

BEUC, which represents 45 regional consumer protection groups across 31 EU countries, called for the EU to designate Temu as a “very large online platform” (VLOP) under the DSA.

The VLOP status means that the Chinese platform has to comply with additional transparency and accountability rules, like Alibaba, Amazon, Booking.com and Google Shopping which are among other VLOPs.

“Our expectation is for the European Commission to move swiftly and force Temu to comply with its new obligations as a VLOP, including assessing and mitigating risks to consumers,” said the consumer organisation.

Among the breaches BEUC has identified, Temu is failing to provide sufficient traceability of the traders that sell on its platform and, thereby, “to ensure that the products sold to EU consumers conform to EU law”.

Temu is using “manipulative practices such as dark patterns to get consumers, for example, to spend more than they might originally want to, or to complicate the process of closing down their account”.

The Chinese marketplace has also failed to “provide transparency about how it recommends products to consumers”.

Earlier this week, the South Korean antitrust regulator signed agreements with Ali Express and Temu to prevent them from selling harmful products to consumers.