AliExpress under DSA fire: e-commerce giant pledges transparency and consumer protection

Brussels – Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress admits fault and commits to a series of measures to comply with European law on digital services (DSA). Today (June 18), the European Commission accepted and made binding the remedies from AliExpress to improve the platform’s transparency regarding advertising and recommendation systems. However, this will not be enough to close the procedure that Brussels initiated in March 2024, as, in the meantime, new elements have been identified regarding the spread of illegal products.

AliExpress, owned by the multinational Alibaba, has 400 million monthly users and must comply with the European Commission’s obligations on VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms) to assess and mitigate systemic risks. The remedies offered by AliExpress concern in particular systems to monitor and detect illegal products – medicines, dietary supplements, or pornographic material – the platform’s reporting and intervention mechanisms to remove such products, the internal complaint management system, transparency of AliExpress’ advertising and recommendation systems, traceability of merchants on AliExpress’ services, and access to public data for researchers.

According to the European Commission, AliExpress’s remedies “address the concerns raised.” Thanks to these commitments, information and tools to limit the spread of illegal content will be easily accessible to the platform’s registered and unregistered users, the Commission said. The Chinese platform also committed to maintaining a structured internal monitoring framework, overseen by a dedicated team, to systematically assess the proper implementation and effectiveness of all these commitments, feeding the regular risk assessment exercises. The platform will submit regular reports to an independent Monitoring Trustee, which will report to the Commission about implementing the commitments annually. “Any breach of the commitments would immediately result in a breach of the DSA and could, therefore, lead to fines,” the Commission said.

However, this is not enough, as a new breach of the obligation to assess and mitigate the risks associated with disseminating illegal products under the DSA emerged from the probe. Preliminary findings released today indicate that AliExpress, when conducting risk assessments, fails to consider the limited resources allocated to its moderation systems to prevent the dissemination of illegal products, thereby underestimating those risks. It does not adequately sanction merchants who repeatedly post illegal content, and its content moderation systems have “systemic flaws” that make them less effective, making them susceptible to manipulation.

AliExpress may now examine the documents in the Commission’s investigation file and respond in writing to the preliminary findings. At that point, if the infringement is definitively confirmed, the Commission will adopt a non-compliance decision. It may impose a fine in addition to requiring AliExpress again to submit an action plan to remedy the infringement.