Alibaba’s AliExpress has been hit with a €550 million ($629 million) fine from the European Union. Brussels says the Chinese shopping platform failed to keep illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products off its site.
The penalty, announced on Monday, is the biggest yet under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). That law forces very large platforms to find and reduce the risks their services create.
What AliExpress got wrong
The European Commission set out a long list of failures in its statement. At the core: AliExpress did not properly assess the risk of illegal goods spreading, and did not do enough to stop it.
The platform did not check whether it had enough staff to review suspect listings, the Commission said. It leaned on a single metric to judge its own moderation, which flattered the results. Its own tests told a different story. Counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics stayed online for weeks, even after being flagged.
