On the platform TEMU sellers offer mostly cheap Chinese products made from plastics. Temu has developed to a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) according to the EU’s Digital Services Act, following its declaration of more than 45 million active users in the EU. In September it announced a number of 92 million monthly users.

Many products offered shall not comply with legal standards in the EU or are cheap copies, violating IP rights of inventors or copyright-holders.

According to the EU-Commission Temu’s risk assessment of 2024 falls short of the standards laid out in the DSA.

The commission states that it is seriously underestimated how often EU consumers are likely to encounter illegal items.

This is obviously the fact. On a weekly basis dangerous products are identified and taken from the marked in all countries. But we regularly identify illegal products and misleading false claims for them on many platforms, including ebay or amazon.

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.

In addition, banned marketing measures like cheating, addictive services to push orders and collect data for profiling could violate the Digital Services Act (DSA) due to the statement published by the Commission.

Link to the press statement (PDF)