Today, the Commission has taken two major steps in its investigation concerning the compliance of AliExpress with the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA and the actions taken today aim to ensure user and consumer safety online.
First, the Commission has accepted and made binding a series of commitments offered by AliExpress to settle a number of concerns, such as the platform's transparency on advertising and recommender systems.
Second, following its in-depth investigation, the Commission preliminarily found AliExpress in breach of its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products under the DSA.
Commitments offered by AliExpress
The Commission has accepted and made binding a series of wide-ranging commitments that address concerns raised by the Commission in related to:
- The platform's systems to monitor and detect illegal products, such as medicines, food supplements, and adult material, spread also through hidden links and affiliate programmes, and which could affect users' health and minors' well-being;
- The platform's notice and action mechanism to flag illegal products;
- The internal complaint handling system;
- The transparency of AliExpress' advertising and recommender systems, including the ads repository and options to personalise recommender systems;
- The traceability of traders on AliExpress' services;
- Access to public data for researchers.
With these commitments, information and tools to limit the spread of illegal content will be easily accessible to both registered and non-registered users of the platform.
AliExpress also committed to maintain a structured internal monitoring framework, overseen by a dedicated team, to systematically assess the proper implementation and effectiveness of all these commitments, also feeding the regular risk assessments exercises. The platform will submit regular reports to an independent Monitoring Trustee, which will report annually to the Commission about the implementation of the commitments.
Today's decision makes the commitments legally binding, to the effect that any breach of them would immediately result in a breach of the DSA and could therefore lead to fines.
Preliminary findings on AliExpress' risk assessment and mitigation obligations
Following its in-depth investigation, the Commission preliminarily found AliExpress in breach of its obligation to assess and mitigate risks related to the dissemination of illegal products under the DSA. In particular, preliminary findings show:
- In its risk assessment, AliExpress does not take into account the limited resources devoted to its moderation systems to avoid the dissemination of illegal products, thereby underestimating such risk.
- AliExpress fails to appropriately enforce its penalty policy concerning traders that repeatedly post illegal content.
- AliExpress' pro-active content moderation systems show systemic failures, making the systems less effective and allowing manipulation by malicious traders.
These findings are in breach of the obligations of Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) , to properly assess and mitigate systemic risks relating to the dissemination of illegal content, such as counterfeit goods or goods that do not comply with European safety rules.
Next Steps
The preliminary findings sent today by the Commission are without prejudice to the final outcome of the investigation, as AliExpress now has the possibility to exercise its rights of defence by examining the documents in the Commission's investigation file and by replying in writing to the Commission's preliminary findings.
If the Commission's preliminary view were to be ultimately confirmed, the Commission would adopt a non-compliance decision finding that AliExpress does not comply with articles 34 and 35 of the DSA, and impose a fine. In addition, such a non-compliance decision would oblige the provider of AliExpress to submit an action plan to remedy the infringement within a specified timeframe, to be approved by the Commission upon opinion of the Board of Digital Services Coordinators .
Background
On 14 March 2024, the Commission opened formal proceedings to assess whether AliExpress may have breached the Digital Services Act in areas linked to the management and mitigation of risks, to content moderation and the internal complaint handling mechanism, the transparency of advertising and recommender systems, the traceability of traders and data access for researchers.
