On Thursday 14 March, the European Commission announced that it had opened proceedings against the Chinese online retailer AliExpress to check whether it had breached European rules under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The Commission had twice before - on 6 November 2023 and 8 January 2024 - requested additional information to the risk assessment report sent by AliExpress in August 2023 and to the information published in its transparency report.
The investigation formally opened on 14 March focuses on the systemic risks associated with the distribution of illegal content and the actual or foreseeable negative effects on consumer protection.
In particular, the Commission criticises the platform for making available products that present risks to health (such as fake medicines, food and food supplements) and to minors in particular (access to pornographic material).
AliExpress is also suspected by the EU of having breached several other DSA rules, including the need to allow all users to notify illegal content, to set up an internal complaint-handling system, to ensure transparency of the parameters used for recommendations and to offer at least one option that does not rely on the use of personal data.
According to a senior European official, the initiation of these proceedings at this stage only reflects the doubts expressed by the Commission, rather than any direct finding that AliExpress had breached the DSA. The Chinese company’s affiliation programme, which allows influencers to promote products sold on the platform, is also being scrutinised by the Commission, which suspects that some of these activities lead to the sale of non-compliant and potentially dangerous products.
AliExpress is the third company to be investigated by the Commission under the DSA; in December, X (formerly Twitter) was notified of formal proceedings relating to the moderation of its content and the transparency of advertising (see EUROPE 13316/10).
TikTok has also been the subject of proceedings since January, to assess whether the company has breached the DSA with regard to the protection of minors, the transparency of advertising and the management of the risks of addictive design and harmful content (see EUROPE 13253/16).
AliExpress was designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) on 25 April 2023 by the Digital Services Act, after claiming to have 104.3 million monthly active users in the EU. It had four months to comply with the new DSA obligations. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)