Source: Politico
“The European Commission slapped Chinese e-commerce giant AliExpress with a record €550 million fine on Monday for failing to stop the sale of illegal and harmful products on its platform. ‘There were a lot of counterfeit products, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics which stayed online for a very long time,’ the EU’s tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters ahead of the announcement. ‘Products were still being recommended and advertised on the platform … even after it was already known that they did not meet the standards.’ The penalty is the biggest ever imposed by the EU executive under the bloc’s rulebook policing online platforms, the Digital Services Act, which requires very large platforms, including AliExpress — owned by China’s tech giant Alibaba — to assess and mitigate the risks associated with the spread of illegal content and goods on their systems.” (07/20/26)