The European Union has fined the Chinese online retailer Temu $230 million for failing to identify and assess the risks of featuring dangerous products on its website, such as small electronics that could pose a fire hazard or children’s toys without proper safety warnings.
The company released a risk assessment in 2024 that fell short of the standards mandated by the Digital Services Act, EU officials said this week.
“It is based on general information about risks concerning the e-commerce sector as a whole, rather than on specific evidence about Temu’s own service, including public reporting and testing,” EU officials said in a statement.
Temu has become one of the most dominant e-commerce companies in the U.S. since it was launched in 2022. According to reports, it has more than 130 million active users in the U.S. alone.
The EU said Temu’s internal analysis “seriously underestimated” how often its consumers in Europe are likely to encounter illegal items.
“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,” EU officials said. “They contain chemicals exceeding legal safety limits or pose suffocation hazards due to detachable parts.”
Temu has until Aug. 28 to submit an action plan to the European Commission that will set out measures to remedy the breach of its risk-assessment obligations. Afterward, the commission has two months to decide if the company has complied with the regulations.
Hanna Virkkunen, head of tech security at the European Union, said risk assessments like the ones Tumu was supposed to have developed are the backbone of the organization’s Digital Services Act.
“Temu’s risk assessment underestimates concrete risks, lacks specificity, is not grounded in solid evidence and is not comprehensive,” Ms. Virkkunen said Wednesday. “It leaves regulators, users and the public in the dark about the true scale of potential harm posed by illegal products sold on Temu.”
