European Union: Announced EU Commission formal proceedings against AliExpress to investigate compliance with DSA requirements regarding risk assessment and consumer protection measures

On 14 March 2024, the European Commission announced the opening of formal proceedings to assess potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA) by AliExpress. The decision to open formal proceedings follows a preliminary investigation conducted from August 2023 onward. The proceedings will focus on issues linked to risk management, content moderation, internal complaint handling, advertising transparency, trader traceability, and data access for researchers. In particular, the investigation concerns the continuing dissemination of illegal content on the platform and the lack of effective measures to prevent this, the notification of such illegal content by users and the existence of an effective system to handle complaints. Further, the Commission will investigate the compliance surrounding the AliExpress Affiliate Program and AliExpress’ recommender system, as well as the obligation to ensure a searchable repository for advertisements and grant researchers access to its publicly accessible data. The Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation on these matters with the possibility of taking further enforcement steps, such as interim measures or non-compliance decisions.