Two popular Chinese online retailers, Temu and Shein, are being asked by the European Commission to provide details by July 12 on how they meet the bloc’s content moderation obligations.
The commission has sent formal requests to the two companies, asking them, among other things, how they protect minors and ensure that their online interfaces don’t deceive or manipulate users, according to a June 28 statement.
Based on its assessment of the information provided by the two companies, the commission will decide what to do next, the statement reads; it could initiate a formal investigation.
Confirmed violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA) can lead to fines that go up to 6 percent of their global turnover.
Both Chinese e-retailer giants are facing the DSA’s “most stringent rules” after being added to the European Union’s list of “very large online platforms” this year, according to a May 31 statement from the commission.
The request is based on a complaint lodged by the European consumer organization BEUC, which represents 44 consumer groups from 31 countries across Europe.
Temu employs “manipulative” techniques, such as “dark patterns” that subtly steer consumers into making decisions that may not align with their original intentions, according to the report. It raised further concerns about the lack of transparency regarding how Temu recommends products to consumers, raising questions about the information the site used and the design of its algorithms.
“Consumers are therefore kept in the dark and may fall prey to manipulative practices by opaque recommender systems,” the report reads.
BEUC also accused the site of failing to provide sufficient protection to minors, noting that the platform’s game features and its products’ low prices are likely to be attractive to users younger than 18.
Meanwhile, 17 consumer groups from the BEUC networks also filed the same complaint against Temu in France, Spain, and other countries.
Asked about the BEUC complaints and the commission’s latest information request, Temu told The Epoch Times in a statement that the company is “cooperating fully” with the EU.
“We’d also like to reiterate that we are fully committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations in the markets where we operate,” a spokesperson for the company said via email.
Shein told The Epoch Times that it had received the commission’s request for information and stated that it was “working to promptly address it.”
“We share the commission’s goal of ensuring that consumers in the EU can shop online with peace of mind, and we will continue working closely with the commission to ensure our compliance with the Digital Services Act,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Shein, a fast-fashion behemoth that relocated its headquarters to Singapore in 2010 from China, entered the market in some European countries in the early 2010s.
In April, the EU executive declared Shein a very large online platform after the company stated that its site was visited by 108 million European users every month.
Under the DSA, platforms with more than 45 million monthly European users must adopt more measures to protect minors and do more to address counterfeit products sold on their platforms.
Temu is the Western offshoot of Pinduoduo, one of the biggest online shopping platforms in China. By selling low-cost products made mostly in China, Temu has gained explosive growth since entering the European market in 2023. At the end of May, the EU executive designated it a very large online platform.
