Rendered at 23:06:06 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Cloudflare Workers.
big85 11 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.
pjc50 11 hours 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.
TheJoeMan 10 hours 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.
super256 9 hours ago [-]
Not a breakdown, but this comment reminded me of a recent play sand test by Stiftung Warentest:
They tested play sand for asbestos, and four of these positive tested play sands were ordered on Temu. The play sand is for kids!
> "suffocation hazards" categories, as my intuition says it's mostly the latter and often bunk.
Are you US-american? (Walmart is a good hint that you are.) There's some widespread misconceptions/prejudice there, e.g. the Kinder egg thing. The EU has no problem with selling those.
TheJoeMan 7 hours ago [-]
Yes, I know this is an EU article, but I suppose we have similar Temu garbage here in the USA to deal with. I wish for more reasonable restrictions but more severe enforcement, as these "bad" product examples I mentioned seem to make people lose interest as they seem silly.
HPsquared 9 hours ago [-]
Batteries are more than a choking hazard; they can cause severe internal chemical burns, gut perforation and so on initiated by electrolysis.
rendaw 8 hours ago [-]
I think the idea is that the baby would be in the bassinet, the parent would have the remote, not the other way around.
bastawhiz 8 hours ago [-]
It's well within the realm of possibility that a parent, holding the remote, approaches the bassinet and sets the remote down in a location where it's reachable by the child. Perhaps even in the bassinet! And especially so if the wireless remote is the only way to operate the bassinet: are you going to walk across the room to turn it on?
Not to mention, new parents are often some of the most sleep deprived. The burden should be on the manufacturer to make these safe. And it's not even that hard: just use one of the clasps on the battery compartment that requires a coin or key to open rather than just your fingernails.
boondongle 8 hours ago [-]
People forget many of US's regulations were written in blood because the US already had it's industrialization period. They left behind signposts that people could use to sue.
The US seems burdensome because some US Entrepreneur already tried not caring and something happened. A good comparison is China cars which don't pass US standards for import. It's also a reason US Makes can't iterate as quickly as they aren't allowed to do the same things that China Makes can to iterate fast.
Whether or not it needs to stay that way is really the only question. I think most reasonably intelligent people read things like suffocation warnings and go, "well obviously don't do that." But the regs are written for the people who aren't that bright who will do it anyway.
throwa356262 11 hours ago [-]
Is temu much worse than amazon here?
embedding-shape 11 hours 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?
bonzini 10 hours ago [-]
"compared to Temu that does not give a damn by design" would be more accurate.
embedding-shape 10 hours ago [-]
I mean the same goes for most US companies, every time they first arrive in Europe they stumble around breaking laws and what not until they get fined to act properly, happened a bunch of times before, most famous examples being Uber and AirBnb, but Amazon been in trouble for the same thing in the past too.
bonzini 8 hours ago [-]
I'd still say Temu and Wish are in a whole other league compared to other predecessors (AliExpress, Banggood, miniinthebox, etc.).
psychoslave 9 hours ago [-]
Isn’t Temu basically Aliexpress with some "new shiny" frontend?
Not sure there is anything one couldn’t find on Amazon the exact same wares, though with the additional margin for a USA bigtech company in the middle.
handle584 8 hours ago [-]
Not really, Aliexpress is from Alibaba, who has been in the exporting business for many years.
While Temu is from Pinduoduo, a competitor to Alibaba known for malicious business practices including exploiting an Android 0-day vulnerability [0].
Edit: I should add that Pinduoduo also ended up being fined over $200 million after a couple fist fight with auditing officials in China [1].
Stay safe, EU folks.
So, like Aliexpress is considered more ethical at this point? Asking as I heard Aliexpress’ ware could sometime be produced forced labors from prison in the underlying retailers. Not that prisoners situation seems particularly fine across all EU and USA either.
bossyTeacher 6 hours ago [-]
More ethical makes it more palatable. The reality is that alibaba is a lesser evil
AndrewDucker 10 hours ago [-]
Certainly in the UK, we don't have the same issues with terrible Chinese fakes that I hear about from US Amazon users.
maccard 10 hours 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.
noir_lord 9 hours ago [-]
One of the many reasons (up to and including US foreign policy) I don't buy from Amazon any more.
I'd sooner give Argos the money, they aren't that much more expensive (if at all) for the common set of things they sell and I can walk and pick it up same day.
They broke the first rule of e-commerce - "Don't make the customer think".
maccard 8 hours ago [-]
I agree. They’ve also devalued prime - I used to know that prime meant next day, now it just means “free delivery” but it could be 2+ weeks depending on where it’s coming from.
argos are great. I ordered something from them for next day delivery and I had it 20 minutes later. The nearest Argos to me is about 15 minutes away so they must have been sitting waiting for orders.
everfrustrated 9 hours ago [-]
One of the best usb chargers for the money is the 40W IKEA charger. I trust their quality control.
The fact they're even doing a recall tells you they care.
When people buy from Alibaba and resell it on Amazon, they're not bothering to issue recalls.
bot403 7 hours ago [-]
The good people at qzzdfghjww company would NEVER sell a defective product.
Hamuko 10 hours 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.
philipwhiuk 10 hours 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.
Seems the last bit of the url was cut off after submission.
spwa4 10 hours 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.
crote 9 hours ago [-]
Yes, because it is the start of enforcement. That's how it works, not just a one-and-done slap on the wrist.
If they don't fix it, it'll eventually continue to the "20% of worldwide revenue" kind of fine everyone on HN was so afraid of when the GDPR was introduced. But that's not what it starts with.
tormeh 9 hours ago [-]
This is a key observation and I also remember those dumb discussions. The top end of the fine scale is more or less theoretical if you demonstrate any willingness to improve. Looks like Temu has engaged in really bad practices, and they still only get what's (to them) a gentle reminder that there are rules.
LunaSea 9 hours ago [-]
It will never continue to 20% of worldwide revenue. No matter how long they refuse to comply with EU laws for.
GDPR has been a farce in terms of enforcement.
tpm 7 hours ago [-]
Because the GDPR enforcement is left to privacy agencies in the members states. The DSA is enforced at the EU level, so that might actually work.
spwa4 7 hours ago [-]
Also a big problem is that the GPDR is a law in the style of all EU laws:
1) they are NOT laws. Despite what's published everywhere you get zero legal rights from the GPDR. A legal right is some right you have, and if someone violates that right you can ask a court to intervene. With the GPDR, there is no such right. No court will help you under the GPDR.
The executives of member state governments (and ~40 "international organizations", most famously Interpol) have the right to enforce GPDR. You can only complain to these new, totally separate from any other enforcement mechanism (ie. they're not police) organizations. And they, of course, generally don't listen.
If you go check the complaints lists are full of people complaining that their medical files were leaked by hospitals (because private doctors are in revolt to the GPDR) to various other government organizations, with very large consequences. For instance medical files being used to decide on insurance status, immigration status, unemployment/long term illness status, and family law status. There is no reaction to this, even when it does violate the GPDR. And my next paragraph is why it generally doesn't.
Second, the executives of member state governments have the right NOT to enforce GPDR. Specifically, the executive has the right to grant exceptions to the GPDR to any organization they want (including transitively: allowing a government contractor not only violate the GPDR themselves but to allow anyone else they use to violate the GPDR. For example, this is the reason Google, Amazon and Microsoft have essentially all medical files of everyone in the EU, and Palantir has some 20%)
These exceptions are made transitively AND after-the-fact. Neither of which is legal, but the only one who can complain is the government itself.
2) It means there is no point for individuals to file GPDR complaints. Normally there is "1831", which is a legal principle which refers to a particular law. Essentially that if you damage someone else by violating the law, you are responsible for that damage (ie. you can be made to pay for them). This applies to essentially every EU law. But not GPDR (and also not to other famous EU laws like DMA)
To illustrate the common problem: you go to the hospital, because you took drugs. Maybe you're scared it'll have serious consequences, whatever. Now you go to your insurance ... and they will no longer cover your treatment for heart arythmia. "It's your own fault, because you did drugs". Now what happened is that the hospital updated your medical file, and sent it to the government. Medical insurance is national, so they have access to medical files. Of course, it is a VERY serious GPDR violation that the information leaked, and with any other law this would mean that a judge will convict the hospital to pay for what you lost, say in this case, they would be forced to pay, WITHOUT the insurance covering it, your heart treatment.
Not with the GPDR. Even if you get the government to go after it, and you get them convicted, you get nothing. Nor is the insurance forced to change their decision.
This is how most new EU law works. The crucial difference is that for essentially all these laws, the EU commission holds all the cards. They then use their position of power to negotiate and come to an understanding with all these organizations. That's how they work, how they've always worked.
And it's one more reason I'm very opposed to the EU. Europeans will THOROUGLY regret giving the commission this power, that's a certainty in my mind.
Specifically what the commission does is to give companies exceptions to these rules. For example, Teresa Ribera, as well as Ursula Von Der Leyen, personally (and without any parliament approval) have the right to extend Apple's exemption to the DMA (and thus Apple's 30% cut to all transactions involving an iPhone in the EU). Both were born rich (Ursula Von Der Leyen is a member of a noble family that has been very wealthy for at least 400 years. Notably, her family's wealth survived WW2 in Germany ...) How is such enormous power in the hands of individuals used? Well, look up how and why a communist served for 8 years as the chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
spwa4 8 hours ago [-]
So you're saying if I start a company in the EU that violates safety standards, copyright, trademarks, ... I will be allowed to profit of that for 3 years (let's pretend it's just 3 years that Chinese producers have been doing that) before facing any consequences and at that point STILL only be required to clean up my act (ie. not face any consequences for violations already done)?
I find this incredibly, incredibly hard to believe.
SiempreViernes 8 hours ago [-]
The EU does in fact not have an infinite amount of safety inspectors, however hard this is to believe for you.
johanvts 8 hours ago [-]
If you start the company in China and ship to EU. If you start it in a EU country I think local laws will stop you much faster than the EU commission. Still there are plenty of grifters that start fraudulent companies in the EU and roll assets into a new one as they bankrupt, and they can operate for decades before they eventually get stopped.
tpm 8 hours ago [-]
Nobody was ever stopping individual member states from prosecuting Temu - they just don't do it because I don't know why, it's too much work? So finally after decades (because this is a decades-long issue with Aliexpress etc) they set up a EU-wide framework and once it starts acting, it's again EU's fault it took so long? They can only do what the member states delegate to them.
But it will eventually get better because in addition to DSA there are other steps; the importers have to declare a responsible person in the EU, the packages will get more expensive etc.
spwa4 4 hours ago [-]
> Nobody was ever stopping individual member states from prosecuting Temu
As a general principle, the EU commission handles all international trade and member states are not allowed to impose tariffs or rules on what has been imported into other member states.
I say general principle because in many cases pre-existing legislation was allowed to continue, however anything new and any changes went through the EU commission (meaning the executive branch has full control, not parliament as generally was the case, even against the wishes of both the EU parliament and member state parliaments)
So no, the EU commission was stopping member states from doing this. So yes, it is very much the EU's fault it took so long.
Oh and, look up the history of the EU commission. If you think the EU commission will help anyone against big business, well, look up their history until you find "European Coal and Steel Community" and look up some of the scandals they were accused of. And yes, they're better than they were in 1951, but that's coming from a pretty damn bad start.
gib444 11 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
purerandomness 11 hours 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.
nolok 11 hours 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.
bcjdjsndon 11 hours ago [-]
How do they enforce a fine on a Chinese company? What if temu says "up yours"?
robin_reala 11 hours 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.
mdrzn 11 hours ago [-]
you won't be able to sell in the EU market anymore
dylan604 10 hours 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.
eqvinox 9 hours ago [-]
At some point it's a diplomatic incident and will affect EU-Chinese relationships. Even the Chinese government doesn't want to fuck it up for all Chinese companies just because one of them feels like the rules don't apply to them. It's not like the only goods flowing from China to the EU are cheap trash.
triceratops 9 hours ago [-]
Smuggling isn't a great business model for legitimate companies.
bonzini 10 hours ago [-]
The money has to move from the EU to Temu/Pinduoduo coffers at some point.
markus92 8 hours ago [-]
Temu has EU warehouses they appear to ship from: all return addresses I've seen are EU addresses.
tpm 8 hours ago [-]
What logistic company will ship plain unmarked packages? They simply wouldn't be delivered at all.
> Is the EU customs peeps just going to start inspecting every single package from China looking for items from Temu?
They might, why not. It would be unwise to pick a fight like this for any company.
bcjdjsndon 10 hours ago [-]
Say they carry on.... How does EU actually stop people ordering from their website and getting items posted to their house?
Mashimo 10 hours ago [-]
Maybe going for the money. Forbit EU banks from transferring funds to known Temu accounts.
askl 10 hours 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.
throw_a_grenade 8 hours ago [-]
They'll put them on naughty list that will be enforced by financial institutions, i.e. it will be an infraction for credit card operators to process such a payment. Financial operators have well oiled compliance facilities and the payment won't clear. If Temu won't get the money, they won't ship the parcel. And if they won't ship, then there will be a bit less carcinogens in EU. Good stuff.
tpm 8 hours ago [-]
There are still borders and customs inspections, that's how.
throw_a_grenade 8 hours ago [-]
It's actually both: they handed one-time fine for past behaviour (about 200 M€, not final, can and most likely will be appealed and paid in like 10 years or so; cf. Apple tax breaks in Ireland); and threatening more fines if they don't play along in the future. One of the kinds of punishment that Commision can slap (subject to court oversight, ofc) is „daily fines”, which is a fine that accumulates with constant daily rate up to the date the company complies, or some pre-set maximum, which usually calculates to several months, and need to be reissued afterwards (which is an opportunity to double the daily amount, and again, can be appealed to a court).
gib444 7 hours ago [-]
> not final, can and most likely will be appealed and paid in like 10 years
But the EU got some headlines and people believed they came down with an iron first so that's really the most important thing here
In my world finest are served when they're actually paid, not threatened
throw_a_grenade 6 hours ago [-]
In my world people are innocent until proven guilty before a court of law, twice. Yes, even business people. Executive branch shouldn't be able to just bankrupt a company and tell the owners to go through the courts to maybe recover the money in 10 years, if they're innocent after all.
There were several such cases in my country before we joined EU, most high profile one was against Optimus SA (predecessor to CD Projekt), where they just took people's money, without cause as they courts later found. Never again.
So the middle ground is, Temu can choose to play hardball all the way to ECJ, but if they are wrong (they are and they know it), the cost will be substantial (200 M€ + interest + daily fines + interest). So I think they'll enter talks, pay 200 M€ and pinky promise to delist offending items.
gib444 5 hours ago [-]
Just to be clear, you're so desperate to disagree with me or be contrary that you're saying that people need to be convicted by a court twice for the same crime for real justice to be properly served?
throw_a_grenade 4 hours ago [-]
They cetainly get to argue before two sets of judges. Otherwise it's not justice.
I wanted to make clear that press release is not a valid substitute for a court order. And it's OK to publish one before the final instance issues it's verdict.
alexaholic 11 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mns 10 hours 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...
alexaholic 10 hours 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.
alibarber 11 hours 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.
pjc50 10 hours 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?)
maccard 10 hours ago [-]
If you know of one of those shops report them to your local trading standards.
chaoz_ 10 hours 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.
sunshine-o 9 hours ago [-]
Yes, but who is fining the commision?
The best way to fight Temu would be to maintain a society where young people are not so desperate that the only comfort they can afford is to order the cheapest crap online.
johanvts 8 hours ago [-]
The TEMU shoppers I know are all older and plenty rich and just basically don’t realize/comprehend that there is a cost to shopping low quality toxic garbage beyond what the see on their receipt. I don’t think cost of living crisis is fueling TEMU, its the desire for unbounded consumption + gamification of shopping.
seydor 10 hours 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.
jonkoops 10 hours ago [-]
Well, enjoy your plastic toys and clothes that are full of known carcinogens I guess.
nutjob2 10 hours ago [-]
It's not being outlawed but made more expensive via a 3 euro fee attached to every item purchased.
> Under the DSA, designated Very Large Online Platforms are required to diligently assess systemic risks linked to their services and adopt corresponding mitigation measures.
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.
They tested play sand for asbestos, and four of these positive tested play sands were ordered on Temu. The play sand is for kids!
https://www.test.de/Deko-Spiel-und-Bastelsand-Asbest-Alarm-i...
Are you US-american? (Walmart is a good hint that you are.) There's some widespread misconceptions/prejudice there, e.g. the Kinder egg thing. The EU has no problem with selling those.
Not to mention, new parents are often some of the most sleep deprived. The burden should be on the manufacturer to make these safe. And it's not even that hard: just use one of the clasps on the battery compartment that requires a coin or key to open rather than just your fingernails.
The US seems burdensome because some US Entrepreneur already tried not caring and something happened. A good comparison is China cars which don't pass US standards for import. It's also a reason US Makes can't iterate as quickly as they aren't allowed to do the same things that China Makes can to iterate fast.
Whether or not it needs to stay that way is really the only question. I think most reasonably intelligent people read things like suffocation warnings and go, "well obviously don't do that." But the regs are written for the people who aren't that bright who will do it anyway.
Not sure there is anything one couldn’t find on Amazon the exact same wares, though with the additional margin for a USA bigtech company in the middle.
[0]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/03/andro...
Edit: I should add that Pinduoduo also ended up being fined over $200 million after a couple fist fight with auditing officials in China [1]. Stay safe, EU folks.
[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-11/fistfight...
I'd sooner give Argos the money, they aren't that much more expensive (if at all) for the common set of things they sell and I can walk and pick it up same day.
They broke the first rule of e-commerce - "Don't make the customer think".
argos are great. I ordered something from them for next day delivery and I had it 20 minutes later. The nearest Argos to me is about 15 minutes away so they must have been sitting waiting for orders.
When people buy from Alibaba and resell it on Amazon, they're not bothering to issue recalls.
Whether they're dangerous I don't know, I've not tried them.
Can European companies demand equal treatment? Wait, no, I know the answer to that.
If they don't fix it, it'll eventually continue to the "20% of worldwide revenue" kind of fine everyone on HN was so afraid of when the GDPR was introduced. But that's not what it starts with.
GDPR has been a farce in terms of enforcement.
1) they are NOT laws. Despite what's published everywhere you get zero legal rights from the GPDR. A legal right is some right you have, and if someone violates that right you can ask a court to intervene. With the GPDR, there is no such right. No court will help you under the GPDR.
The executives of member state governments (and ~40 "international organizations", most famously Interpol) have the right to enforce GPDR. You can only complain to these new, totally separate from any other enforcement mechanism (ie. they're not police) organizations. And they, of course, generally don't listen.
If you go check the complaints lists are full of people complaining that their medical files were leaked by hospitals (because private doctors are in revolt to the GPDR) to various other government organizations, with very large consequences. For instance medical files being used to decide on insurance status, immigration status, unemployment/long term illness status, and family law status. There is no reaction to this, even when it does violate the GPDR. And my next paragraph is why it generally doesn't.
Second, the executives of member state governments have the right NOT to enforce GPDR. Specifically, the executive has the right to grant exceptions to the GPDR to any organization they want (including transitively: allowing a government contractor not only violate the GPDR themselves but to allow anyone else they use to violate the GPDR. For example, this is the reason Google, Amazon and Microsoft have essentially all medical files of everyone in the EU, and Palantir has some 20%)
These exceptions are made transitively AND after-the-fact. Neither of which is legal, but the only one who can complain is the government itself.
2) It means there is no point for individuals to file GPDR complaints. Normally there is "1831", which is a legal principle which refers to a particular law. Essentially that if you damage someone else by violating the law, you are responsible for that damage (ie. you can be made to pay for them). This applies to essentially every EU law. But not GPDR (and also not to other famous EU laws like DMA)
To illustrate the common problem: you go to the hospital, because you took drugs. Maybe you're scared it'll have serious consequences, whatever. Now you go to your insurance ... and they will no longer cover your treatment for heart arythmia. "It's your own fault, because you did drugs". Now what happened is that the hospital updated your medical file, and sent it to the government. Medical insurance is national, so they have access to medical files. Of course, it is a VERY serious GPDR violation that the information leaked, and with any other law this would mean that a judge will convict the hospital to pay for what you lost, say in this case, they would be forced to pay, WITHOUT the insurance covering it, your heart treatment.
Not with the GPDR. Even if you get the government to go after it, and you get them convicted, you get nothing. Nor is the insurance forced to change their decision.
This is how most new EU law works. The crucial difference is that for essentially all these laws, the EU commission holds all the cards. They then use their position of power to negotiate and come to an understanding with all these organizations. That's how they work, how they've always worked.
And it's one more reason I'm very opposed to the EU. Europeans will THOROUGLY regret giving the commission this power, that's a certainty in my mind.
Specifically what the commission does is to give companies exceptions to these rules. For example, Teresa Ribera, as well as Ursula Von Der Leyen, personally (and without any parliament approval) have the right to extend Apple's exemption to the DMA (and thus Apple's 30% cut to all transactions involving an iPhone in the EU). Both were born rich (Ursula Von Der Leyen is a member of a noble family that has been very wealthy for at least 400 years. Notably, her family's wealth survived WW2 in Germany ...) How is such enormous power in the hands of individuals used? Well, look up how and why a communist served for 8 years as the chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
I find this incredibly, incredibly hard to believe.
But it will eventually get better because in addition to DSA there are other steps; the importers have to declare a responsible person in the EU, the packages will get more expensive etc.
As a general principle, the EU commission handles all international trade and member states are not allowed to impose tariffs or rules on what has been imported into other member states.
I say general principle because in many cases pre-existing legislation was allowed to continue, however anything new and any changes went through the EU commission (meaning the executive branch has full control, not parliament as generally was the case, even against the wishes of both the EU parliament and member state parliaments)
So no, the EU commission was stopping member states from doing this. So yes, it is very much the EU's fault it took so long.
Oh and, look up the history of the EU commission. If you think the EU commission will help anyone against big business, well, look up their history until you find "European Coal and Steel Community" and look up some of the scandals they were accused of. And yes, they're better than they were in 1951, but that's coming from a pretty damn bad start.
> 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
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.
1.1 These Terms are between you and Whaleco Technology Limited, an Irish company.
> Is the EU customs peeps just going to start inspecting every single package from China looking for items from Temu?
They might, why not. It would be unwise to pick a fight like this for any company.
Or maybe getting google and apple to make the app not available in the EU.
But the EU got some headlines and people believed they came down with an iron first so that's really the most important thing here
In my world finest are served when they're actually paid, not threatened
There were several such cases in my country before we joined EU, most high profile one was against Optimus SA (predecessor to CD Projekt), where they just took people's money, without cause as they courts later found. Never again.
So the middle ground is, Temu can choose to play hardball all the way to ECJ, but if they are wrong (they are and they know it), the cost will be substantial (200 M€ + interest + daily fines + interest). So I think they'll enter talks, pay 200 M€ and pinky promise to delist offending items.
I wanted to make clear that press release is not a valid substitute for a court order. And it's OK to publish one before the final instance issues it's verdict.
If you believe the EU cares about the EU economy, then I think it's absolutely relevant to talk about the EU targeting Temu.
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.
(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?)
The best way to fight Temu would be to maintain a society where young people are not so desperate that the only comfort they can afford is to order the cheapest crap online.