Taming Temu: Why the fast-growing online marketplace fails to comply with the EU Digital Services Act

The online marketplace Temu has seen skyrocketing numbers of consumers using its platform in a matter of months, including in Europe, and is already able to compete with other e-commerce giants.

Temu proposes heavily discounted products and relies extensively on gamification and intensive advertising to appeal to consumers.

Yet the marketplace also raises serious concerns. It is suspected of infringing various EU laws that are meant to protect consumers.

In this complaint, we show how Temu fails to comply with several of its obligations as laid down under EU Regulation 2022/2065 (the Digital Services Act – “DSA”).

Temu does not guarantee its users a safe, predictable, and trustworthy online environment as the law requires. Among other things, we have strong concerns that consumers are falling prey to manipulative techniques, that Temu fails to ensure the traceability of the traders operating on its platform, or that its overall functioning remains opaque, all of which breach the Digital Services Act.

For these reasons, consumer organisations from the BEUC network have filed complaints with their competent Digital Services Coordinators pursuant to Article 53 DSA and have also alerted the European Commission as Temu is a de facto Very Large Online Platform (“VLOP”) with tens of millions of users across Europe. We call on the competent authorities to force Temu to comply immediately with all the requirements listed in the DSA and to ensure a safe digital environment for all European consumers.