The European Commission is preparing to launch an investigation into Chinese online retail platform Temu to see if it violates rules designed to prevent the sale of illegal goods online, according to a statement on the European Commission’s website.
The statement said Temu’s platform may have breached the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas related to the sale of illegal products. At issue are the marketplace’s algorithms used to recommend purchases to users and the company’s access to customer data.
The European Commission launched an investigation into Temu Marketplace on October 11. It demanded detailed information and internal documents on the measures taken against the presence and reappearance on the online marketplace of sellers offering illegal products.
In May, the European Commission listed the platform as a “very large online platform” under the Digital Services Act, on a par with Amazon, X and TikTok. The platform is popular in the EU, with an average of around 75 million active users per month.
In August, Temu founder Colin Huang was recognised as the richest man in China, with an estimated fortune of $48.6bn.
