Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced Tuesday that Arizona is the latest state to sue Temu and its parent company PDD Holdings Inc. over allegations that the Chinese online retailer is stealing customers’ data.
Mayes said the app deceives customers about the quality of its low-cost products and collects what she described as a shocking amount of sensitive data without the consent of users, including GPS locations and a list of other apps on users’ phones.
According to the lawsuit, prosecutors are concerned about Temu being subject to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government, and that its code is designed to evade security reviews.
“It can detect everywhere you go, to a doctor’s office, to a public library, to a political event, to your friends’ houses,” Mayes said during a news conference. “So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona.”
Arizona’s top prosecutor also said the state wants to protect businesses from being “ripped off” by the online retailer, alleging the company has copied the intellectual property of brands that include the Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University.
