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European Commission Initiates Official Process to AliExpress Which Relates Illegal Online Products Under the Digital Services Act

E-Ticaret, IT (Information Technology) Law, Consumer Law

The European Commission (“Commission”) announced on 14 March 2024 that it has initiated formal proceedings to assess whether AliExpress has breached the Digital Services Act (“DSA”) in areas linked to the management and mitigation of risks, content moderation and internal complaint handling mechanism, transparency of advertising and recommender systems, traceability of traders and data access for investigators.

According to the press release, the official process will focus on the following areas:

  • The availability of certain products that pose a risk to the health of consumers (such as counterfeit medicines and food and nutritional supplements) and products that should be banned, especially for minors (such as access to pornographic material),
  • Lack of effective measures to prevent the spread of illegal content,
  • Lack of effective measures to prevent deliberate manipulation of the online platform through "hidden links",
  • Lack of effective measures to prevent the particular risks of influencers promoting illegal or harmful products through the "AliExpress Partner Program",
  • Compliance with the obligation to provide an effective internal complaints management system,
  • Compliance with the obligation to provide a searchable and reliable database for advertisements served on AliExpress,
  • Compliance with the obligation to provide access to information requested pursuant to Article 40 of the DSA.

No deadline has been set for the conclusion of formal proceedings and the Commission has also allowed AliExpress to make commitments to remedy the matters under investigation.

AliExpress was identified as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the EU's Digital Services Act on April 25, 2023, after announcing that it has 104.3 million monthly active users in the EU.

You can reach the press release of Commission about subject here.

Digital Services Act has been applicable to all online intermediaries in the EU since February 17th and you can find the full text here.

 

Kind regards,

Zumbul Attorneys at Law

info@zumbul.av.tr