The European Commission decided this Thursday to open a formal investigation into the Chinese giant Temu to evaluate whether infringed the European Digital Services Law (DSA) about the sale of illegal products and about the potentially addictive design of the service.
The research also covers the systems used by Temu to recommend purchases to usersas well as the data access by the researchers whom the platform must allow to study how its algorithms work, the Community Executive reported in a statement.
That is, the systems that Temu has implemented will be investigated to limit the sale of “non-compliant” products in the European Union.
Among them, the spokesperson for the Internal Market of the European Commission, Thomas Regniercited the sale of drugs, chemicals and toysalthough he specified that “the important thing is that we are not looking at a specific type of product”, but the measures that Temu puts into practice to avoid themhe said at the institution’s daily press conference.
Among other things, the DSA requires systems designed to limit the reappearance of dishonest traders that have been previously suspended and are known to have sold non-compliant products in the past, as well as systems to limit the re-emergence of non-compliant products.
He Community executive also wants to examine in detail “the risks related to addictive service designincluding game-like rewards programs, and systems that Temu has implemented to mitigate the risks arising from such addictive design, which could have negative consequences for a person’s physical and mental well-being“.
Brussels The fulfillment of DSA’s obligations related to the way Temu recommends content and products to users.
This includes, specified the Commissionthe requirement to disclose the main parameters used in Temu recommendation systems and to provide users with at least one easily accessible option that does not rely on profiling.
Another aspect included in the community investigations is compliance with the DSA’s obligation to give researchers access to publicly available Temu data.
If it is confirmed that Temu’s activities in the aforementioned areas to be subject to evaluation do not comply with the DSA, The Chinese platform would be violating five articles of the aforementioned European legislation (27, 34, 35, 38 and 40).
The internet platforms with more than 45 million users on the continent they must take measures to stop the spread of disinformation and illegal contentincluding the sale of products that do not comply with community regulations, or otherwise risk receiving fines of up to 6% of your global annual incomeunder the DSA.
In his last statement in September, Temu said it has 92 million monthly users.
The decision adopted this Thursday by the Community Executive to start a “thorough investigation as a priority” to Temu occurs after preliminary analyzes from the risk assessment report provided by the Chinese platform at the end of last September.
To open this investigation, “does not prejudge the result”Brussels has also taken into account the responses to formal requests for information to Temu from the Commission of June 28 and October 11as well as the information shared by third parties.
Likewise, the Commission also relied on the information shared through the cooperation mechanism with national authorities within the framework of the European Board of Digital Services Coordinators, in particular with the Irish Digital Services CoordinatorBrussels said.
From now on, the European Commission will continue to gather evidencefor example by sending additional requests for information to Temu or third parties or carrying out follow-up actions or interviews.
The DSAwhich empowers the Commission to take additional enforcement measuresdoes not establish any legal deadline for ending a thorough investigation, which depends on the complexity of the casethe degree of company cooperation in question with the Commission and the exercise of defense rights.
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