AliExpress handed €550 million DSA fine
The European Commission has fined e-commerce platform AliExpress €550 million for breaching its obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The EU body said that the platform, owned by China’s Alibaba, had failed to “diligently assess and mitigate” risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products.
“The spread of counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, dangerous cosmetics. and other illegal and harmful products is not an unavoidable cost of shopping online; it is a failure by AliExpress to comply with its obligations under the Digital Services Act,” said commissioner Henna Virkkunen.
Illegal products not detected
The assessment failures the European Commission found were linked to inadequate staffing levels, the impact of AliExpress’s recommender and advertising systems, and flaws in its measurement systems.
The EU body also found that AliExpress had failed to take effective measures to reduce the risk of dissemination of illegal products, stating that its system to detect such products did not work properly.
“Many illegal products – from counterfeit products to unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics – circulated on the platform and, even if detected, remained online for multiple weeks,” the EU probe found.
Measures on counterfeit sales ‘ineffective’
It added that the platform did not properly implement its penalty policy for traders selling illegal products, while its compliance checks could be “easily circumvented” by miscategorising products.
It also described AliExpress's mandatory ‘brand authorisation' system – intended to prevent counterfeit sales – as “ineffective and understaffed”.
AliExpress now has until 20 October to submit an action plan to address the commission’s concerns.