Commission fines Temu €200M for breaching the Digital Services Act

MMrDresden about 2 hours ago 27 commentsRead Article on ec.europa.eu

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Discussion (27 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

big85•about 1 hour ago

> Evidence from a mystery shopping exercise included in the Commission's investigation shows that a very high percentage of the selected chargers failed basic safety tests, while a high percentage of tested baby toys posed safety risks of medium to high severity, as they contain chemicals exceeding legal safety limits or pose suffocation hazards due to detachable parts.

> Under the DSA, designated Very Large Online Platforms are required to diligently assess systemic risks linked to their services and adopt corresponding mitigation measures.

pjc50•about 1 hour ago

Interesting that this is under the DSA, since if they're the "importer" by mailing parcels to the EU it would also be covered by long standing rules on CE marking.

It's good to know that someone's actually checking this stuff. Self-reported compliance like CE always makes me wonder if I'm a mug for trying to comply honestly with the rules when it would be easy not to.

throwa356262•about 1 hour ago

Is temu much worse than amazon here?

AndrewDucker•9 minutes ago

Certainly in the UK, we don't have the same issues with terrible Chinese fakes that I hear about from US Amazon users.

maccard•4 minutes ago

We don’t have the fakes problem but Amazon in the UK has a growing amount of stuff that is just resale of stuff from temu. I suspect if you tested the top 10 chargers on Amazon that weren’t anker, you’d find the same problems.

philipwhiuk•4 minutes ago

Amazon UK these days is definitely full of Chinese reproductions and drop shipped knock offs.

Whether they're dangerous I don't know, I've not tried them.

embedding-shape•about 1 hour ago

Probably yeah, Amazon already had long exposure to the regulations from EU and European countries, they surely have some won lessons from these years, compared to Temu which is relatively new and might still be learning how things work, apparently. Temu is what, 3-4 years old or something?

HPsquared•about 1 hour ago

There's a lot of work to be done.

alexaholic•35 minutes ago

Isn't it amusing how this targets Temu specifically, not the local importers, shops and marketplaces that sell the same -- but marked up -- products?

maccard•3 minutes ago

If you know of one of those shops report them to your local trading standards.

mns•8 minutes ago

But you know what's not amusing, but rather sad? the comments here. It's wild that people now are upset that the big bad EU is somehow doing something against companies that make profit from selling products that could hurt people, products targeted for kids that can poison or kill them, but the main issue, as seen by tech people, is the EU targeting Temu...

alibarber•29 minutes ago

This is about illegally dangerous products (banned chemicals, dangerous baby toys, crappy mains chargers) specifically. The stuff that makes for exciting viewing on Big Clive's YouTube channel.

Local importers, shops and marketplaces selling such stuff do often get hit by national enforcement. Not enough in my opinion - but this isn't about just targeting Teemu for the normal commodities that you can indeed buy anywhere else.

jp3141•about 1 hour ago

Correct URL: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...

seydor•26 minutes ago

I've been buying everything i can think of from temu for a year now , in anticipation of it surely being outlawed in the EU. That time has come.

humanpotato•about 1 hour ago

Actual link: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_...

spwa4•7 minutes ago

So they let sellers from china, and reseller platforms, get away with violating safety laws for 3 years (just Temu), have 50 BILLION euro in revenue (about 3-4 billion in profit for the platform itself) from those products and then charge them 200 Million for the crime?

Can European companies demand equal treatment? Wait, no, I know the answer to that.

gib444•about 1 hour ago

> Temu has until 28 August 2026 to submit an action plan to the Commission, as required by Article 75 of the DSA. The plan must set out measures to remedy the breach of its risk-assessment obligations. The European Board for Digital Services will have one month from receipt of the plan to issue its opinion. The Commission will then have a further month to adopt its final decision and set a reasonable period for implementation.

> Failure to comply with the non-compliance decision may lead to periodic penalty payments.

So they're just threatening a fine at this stage? It's not clear to me

purerandomness•about 1 hour ago

Since this is under the "Next Steps" section, it's pretty clear to me that the €200M fine is a fixed one-time fine that was issued now, but further, repeated fines ("periodic") will be issued if the hazard is not removed.

nolok•about 1 hour ago

No, it's a fine, but the fine doesn't absolve you from fixing it too so it stops. You have this delay to submit a plan for how and on what timeline you will fix it. If you don't do it, or take too long, we will keep fining you, increasingly.

An exemple what how in the old microsoft case they ended up puttin a daily fine for non compliance until microsoft balked back and fixed it (after they tried to act tough and pretended to ignore them).

The end goal ultimately is to get it fixed.

bcjdjsndon•42 minutes ago

How do they enforce a fine on a Chinese company? What if temu says "up yours"?

robin_reala•35 minutes ago

I visited Temu from Sweden and clicked on the terms of use, this is the first line:

1.1 These Terms are between you and Whaleco Technology Limited, an Irish company.

mdrzn•37 minutes ago

you won't be able to sell in the EU market anymore