EU probes Chinese site AliExpress over potentially illegal online products
Al Jazeera
The European Union also sent requests for info to tech giants on their use of generative artificial intelligence.
The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into Chinese e-commerce site AliExpress over concerns about illegal and pornographic content on its platform.
In a statement on Thursday, the European Union’s executive arm said it would investigate the e-commerce giant under its Digital Services Act (DSA), a law requiring companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful products on their platforms.
The probe will determine if AliExpress breached the DSA in “areas linked to the management and mitigation of risks, to content moderation and the internal complaint handling mechanism, to the transparency of advertising and recommender systems, [and] to the traceability of traders and data access for researchers,” the commission said.
Fake medicines, food, and dietary supplements sales – as well as pornographic material that the commission said minors can still access on the website – are major issues, the statement read.
How AliExpress recommends products to shoppers and whether the site complies with a rule requiring a searchable repository of adverts provided on the platform are other areas of investigation.
