Europe launches investigation into whether Temu violated regulations preventing the sale of illegal products.
The European Commission launched the investigation under the Digital Services Act (DSA), after receiving complaints from pan-European consumer body BEUC and 17 member organisations. The DSA requires major online platforms like Temu to make more efforts to prevent illegal and harmful content.
“There are doubts that the measures being taken are not effective enough to prevent the distribution of illegal products. Fraudulent traders often return to selling under different identities,” an EU official said.
In addition to this, the EU Technology Enforcement Agency also checks whether Temu complies with DSA regulations in providing public data to researchers. Temu’s potentially addictive designs – such as its prize-winning game programs and its way of recommending products to users – were also investigated.
“We want to ensure that Temu is complying with the Digital Services Act, specifically in ensuring products sold on the platform meet EU standards and do not harm consumers,” Ms Margrethe Vestager, Head of the European Commission’s technology and antitrust department, said.
Temu logo on the platform’s product sales website interface. Graphics: Phien An
Temu – part of e-commerce group PDD Holdings (China) – has 92 million users in the European Union. If found to be in breach of the DSA, they could face fines of up to 6% of global turnover.
Responding to the EU’s move, Temu said it would cooperate with regulators. “Temu takes its obligations under the DSA seriously and continuously invests to strengthen compliance systems and protect consumer rights on the platform,” the company stated in the announcement. This cross-border retail platform also said it is negotiating to join the EU’s voluntary initiative to combat the sale of counterfeit products.
In the first half of this year, the total transaction value (GMV) on Temu reached 20 billion USD, exceeding 2023 (18 billion USD), according to startup consulting and investment services firm Momentum Works (Singapore). Temu has replaced eBay to become the second most visited e-commerce website in the world, with 684.4 million global visits in August 2024 (still led by Amazon), according to Similarweb.