IANS | 17 May, 2024
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
AliExpress and Temu to prevent them from selling harmful products to
consumers.
