European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Lithuania's President Gitanas Nauseda attend the plenary session at the EU-Western Balkans summit in Tivat, Montenegro, on June 5. File Photo by Boris Pejovic/EPA
July 20 (UPI) -- The European Commission announced a record fine against AliExpress for violating the Digital Services Act on Monday, calling on the platform to take action.
The commission has fined AliExpress, an online retail company based in China, for about $629 million for not properly assessing potentially illegal products being sold on the platform.
The European Commission said in a press release that AliExpress "fell short of its obligation under the DSA to diligently assess the risk of dissemination of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products through its services in multiple ways."
"The spread of counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, dangerous cosmetics and other illegal and harmful products is not an unavoidable cost of shopping online," Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president of tech sovereignty, security and democracy with the European Commission, said in a statement. "It is a failure by AliExpress to comply with its obligations under the Digital Services Act. Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically to ensure consumers can safely shop online."
