48 pointsby MrDresden2 hours ago7 comments
  • big852 hours ago
    > Evidence from a mystery shopping exercise included in the Commission's investigation shows that a very high percentage of the selected chargers failed basic safety tests, while a high percentage of tested baby toys posed safety risks of medium to high severity, as they contain chemicals exceeding legal safety limits or pose suffocation hazards due to detachable parts.

    > Under the DSA, designated Very Large Online Platforms are required to diligently assess systemic risks linked to their services and adopt corresponding mitigation measures.

    • TheJoeMana minute ago
      I'd be curious to see a breakdown between the "toxic chemicals" and "suffocation hazards" categories, as my intuition says it's mostly the latter and often bunk. The other day I was watching the TV above the Walmart customer service desk that displays product recalls, and multiple recalled products were a motorized bassinet, but the wireless remote control has a battery compartment that could be opened and then the battery swallowed. To a layman or (I assume) Chinese inventor, that seems overly burdensome as I am certain that same household would have other wireless remotes.
    • pjc50an hour ago
      Interesting that this is under the DSA, since if they're the "importer" by mailing parcels to the EU it would also be covered by long standing rules on CE marking.

      It's good to know that someone's actually checking this stuff. Self-reported compliance like CE always makes me wonder if I'm a mug for trying to comply honestly with the rules when it would be easy not to.

    • throwa356262an hour ago
      Is temu much worse than amazon here?
      • embedding-shapean hour ago
        Probably yeah, Amazon already had long exposure to the regulations from EU and European countries, they surely have some won lessons from these years, compared to Temu which is relatively new and might still be learning how things work, apparently. Temu is what, 3-4 years old or something?
        • bonzini10 minutes ago
          "compared to Temu that does not give a damn by design" would be more accurate.
      • AndrewDucker30 minutes ago
        Certainly in the UK, we don't have the same issues with terrible Chinese fakes that I hear about from US Amazon users.
        • maccard24 minutes ago
          We don’t have the fakes problem but Amazon in the UK has a growing amount of stuff that is just resale of stuff from temu. I suspect if you tested the top 10 chargers on Amazon that weren’t anker, you’d find the same problems.
        • Hamuko8 minutes ago
          I don’t know about fakes, but browsing Amazon DE feels like browsing AliExpress when looking for any technology products. Especially cables, adapters and such.
        • philipwhiuk25 minutes ago
          Amazon UK these days is definitely full of Chinese reproductions and drop shipped knock offs.

          Whether they're dangerous I don't know, I've not tried them.

      • HPsquaredan hour ago
        There's a lot of work to be done.
  • spwa427 minutes ago
    So they let sellers from china, and reseller platforms, get away with violating safety laws for 3 years (just Temu), have 50 BILLION euro in revenue (about 3-4 billion in profit for the platform itself) from those products and then charge them 200 Million for the crime?

    Can European companies demand equal treatment? Wait, no, I know the answer to that.

  • gib4442 hours ago
    > Temu has until 28 August 2026 to submit an action plan to the Commission, as required by Article 75 of the DSA. The plan must set out measures to remedy the breach of its risk-assessment obligations. The European Board for Digital Services will have one month from receipt of the plan to issue its opinion. The Commission will then have a further month to adopt its final decision and set a reasonable period for implementation.

    > Failure to comply with the non-compliance decision may lead to periodic penalty payments.

    So they're just threatening a fine at this stage? It's not clear to me

    • purerandomnessan hour ago
      Since this is under the "Next Steps" section, it's pretty clear to me that the €200M fine is a fixed one-time fine that was issued now, but further, repeated fines ("periodic") will be issued if the hazard is not removed.
    • nolokan hour ago
      No, it's a fine, but the fine doesn't absolve you from fixing it too so it stops. You have this delay to submit a plan for how and on what timeline you will fix it. If you don't do it, or take too long, we will keep fining you, increasingly.

      An exemple what how in the old microsoft case they ended up puttin a daily fine for non compliance until microsoft balked back and fixed it (after they tried to act tough and pretended to ignore them).

      The end goal ultimately is to get it fixed.

      • bcjdjsndonan hour ago
        How do they enforce a fine on a Chinese company? What if temu says "up yours"?
        • robin_realaan hour ago
          I visited Temu from Sweden and clicked on the terms of use, this is the first line:

          1.1 These Terms are between you and Whaleco Technology Limited, an Irish company.

        • mdrznan hour ago
          you won't be able to sell in the EU market anymore
          • bcjdjsndon33 minutes ago
            Say they carry on.... How does EU actually stop people ordering from their website and getting items posted to their house?
            • Mashimo23 minutes ago
              Maybe going for the money. Forbit EU banks from transferring funds to known Temu accounts.
            • askl27 minutes ago
              Ordering ISPs to DNS block temu would probably be easier and effective enough.

              Or maybe getting google and apple to make the app not available in the EU.

          • dylan60439 minutes ago
            Doesn’t Temu direct ship to the customer? What if they ship in plain unmarked packaging and keep changing the address of the sender? Is the EU customs peeps just going to start inspecting every single package from China looking for items from Temu? That sounds like a logistical nightmare. This sounds like old school thinking where you can stop whole containers full of stuff from a single supplier.
            • bonzini8 minutes ago
              The money has to move from the EU to Temu/Pinduoduo coffers at some point.
  • alexaholican hour ago
    [flagged]
    • mns28 minutes ago
      But you know what's not amusing, but rather sad? the comments here. It's wild that people now are upset that the big bad EU is somehow doing something against companies that make profit from selling products that could hurt people, products targeted for kids that can poison or kill them, but the main issue, as seen by tech people, is the EU targeting Temu...
      • alexaholic21 minutes ago
        If you believe the EU cares about kids, then yeah, I guess you could say it's sad to talk about the EU targeting Temu.

        If you believe the EU cares about the EU economy, then I think it's absolutely relevant to talk about the EU targeting Temu.

    • alibarberan hour ago
      This is about illegally dangerous products (banned chemicals, dangerous baby toys, crappy mains chargers) specifically. The stuff that makes for exciting viewing on Big Clive's YouTube channel.

      Local importers, shops and marketplaces selling such stuff do often get hit by national enforcement. Not enough in my opinion - but this isn't about just targeting Teemu for the normal commodities that you can indeed buy anywhere else.

    • pjc5020 minutes ago
      This is one press release. It tells us nothing about how much other enforcement action has taken place, much of which is supposed to be local. The EU does not care about individual corner shops, report them to your local trading standards body.

      (I also find it odd how we get lots of nationalist complaints from the US on here when EU rules are applied to US companies; now EU rules are being applied to a Chinese company and people are still complaining?)

    • maccard23 minutes ago
      If you know of one of those shops report them to your local trading standards.
    • chaoz_17 minutes ago
      I worked at a very large EU tech company, that spent a lot of effort (and moneys) to become DSA compliant. So, you're over-projecting here.
  • seydoran hour ago
    I've been buying everything i can think of from temu for a year now , in anticipation of it surely being outlawed in the EU. That time has come.
    • jonkoops4 minutes ago
      Well, enjoy your plastic toys and clothes that are full of known carcinogens I guess.
    • nutjob24 minutes ago
      It's not being outlawed but made more expensive via a 3 euro fee attached to every item purchased.