EU Commission's DSA proceedings: AliExpress must make improvements

The EU Commission continues to see deficits in the risk management of the Chinese Alibaba Group's AliExpress sales platform. This is the result of the preliminary findings of the investigation, which has been ongoing for over a year, and was presented by the Commission on Wednesday.

AliExpress has been able to resolve some of the EU's complaints for now with a voluntary commitment. For example, users who are not logged in can now also report content on the platform, and the traceability of merchant information has also been improved.

Illegal products

However, a central point of the investigation remains acute, explained the EU Commission: AliExpress underestimates the dangers of products that are illegal in the EU. These could include unsafe children's toys, inadequately secured electronics, cosmetics or adult products containing harmful substances.

It is true that the platform removes products that are listed as unsafe by market surveillance authorities, for example on the SafetyGate portal. However, AliExpress does not sufficiently prevent exactly the same products from being offered on the marketplace again, an EU official explained.

Under observation

The Commission has been monitoring AliExpress since fall 2023 and initiated formal proceedings in March 2024. The basis for this is the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the extended rules for very large online platforms (VLOP) set out therein. AliExpress has shown itself to be cooperative, according to the Commission.

“We have been able to take concrete steps to ensure a high level of security for EU citizens and, at the same time, fair competition for platforms and traders in the EU market,” said Henna Virkkunen, Vice-President of the EU Commission.

AliExpress can now comment on these preliminary results of the investigation. If the company can also resolve the other concerns now identified by the EU Commission in the future, no fines would be due.

(dahe)