The EU penalized the massive Chinese online retailer AliExpress a record €550 million (£467 million) for permitting the sale of illicit goods such dangerous toys and counterfeit clothing.
AliExpress has failed to “diligently assess” the risk of illicit, dangerous, or counterfeit items on its platform, according to the European Commission. According to EU tech director Henna Virkkunen, “the spread of fake clothes, dangerous toys, hazardous cosmetics, and other illegal and harmful products is not an inevitable cost of online shopping; it is a failure by AliExpress to comply with its obligations.”
AliExpress declared that the fine was “disproportionate” and that it would file an appeal. AliExpress’s detection systems “did not work properly,” according to the two-year inquiry, with many illicit products going unreported and others that were discovered remaining on the website for several weeks.
The European Commission also discovered that the business failed to adequately penalize vendors who sold illicit goods. Its product conformity tests could also be “easily circumvented. With 193 million users in Europe, AliExpress, owned by the Chinese tech giant Alibaba, has more consumers than Shein or Temu, two other Chinese online merchants.
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