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EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

bbc.co.uk

101–110 of 423 posts

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#101

It seems like quite a light punishment for selling such dangerous products that could literally kill people. The dodgy e-bike batteries have already been linked to several fires. bigclivedotcom takes apart some of the Temu stuff on YouTube and some of the electronics is atrocious.

They sell adapters to turn oil cans into silencers. Each one should be a violation of the National Firearms Act and subject to up to a half million dollar fine https://www.atf.gov/media/25071/download Nota bened; these are not per-se illegal, but you need to sell them through a firearms dealer and pay for an ATF tax stamp and only in states that have not banned them/all NFA items.

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#102
post #55

I am very pro free market, but Temu with data harvesting and selling illegal projects should be banned together with tiktok...

Doesn’t TEMU have CCP ties? Free market is for businesses and individuals and foreign govt entities should not unfairly benefit from a free market.

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#105
post #99

Big corp penny slap on the fingers. I dont this amount will change behaviour or incentive to make larger profit.

It sets precedent, and has already led to a (by Chinese foreign policy standards) fairly vicious response [0][1][2].

This is also part of the EU's larger tariffs against China [3].

[0] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1361926.shtml

[1] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362200.shtml

[2] - https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202605/1362161.shtml

[3] - https://www.ft.com/content/e28fe696-ac30-4543-a105-febc82789...

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#106
post #55

I am very pro free market, but Temu with data harvesting and selling illegal projects should be banned together with tiktok...

Doesn’t TEMU have CCP ties? Free market is for businesses and individuals and foreign govt entities should not unfairly benefit from a free market.

Ties as in pay tax to ccp. In China Temu is called pinduoduo (拼多多)and you can buy some wild stuff there, the regulation on mainland seems also pretty lax i mean.

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#107
post #101

It seems like quite a light punishment for selling such dangerous products that could literally kill people. The dodgy e-bike batteries have already been linked to several fires. bigclivedotcom takes apart some of the Temu stuff on YouTube and some of the electronics is atrocious.

They sell adapters to turn oil cans into silencers. Each one should be a violation of the National Firearms Act and subject to up to a half million dollar fine https://www.atf.gov/media/25071/download Nota bened; these are not per-se illegal, but you need to sell them through a firearms dealer and pay for an ATF tax stamp and only in states that have not banned them/all NFA items.

This. Same for the Chinese mainland app, some wild stuff like that being sold (firearms are highly regulated, but 1:1 copies seem to be ok, maybe because of the high level of regulation?)

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#108
post #74
post #56

Isn't there some kind of law to disallow imports without a CE / RoHS / etc label? Why allow it to enter the EU, and then fine the seller afterwards?

For electronics without wireless functionality, it is allowed to self-certify. Anyone could also print whatever label they want on their products illegally (i.e. without doing the required paperwork to self-certify). The policemen controlling imports don't have the competency to check for faults, so we get this situation where specialists regularly sample the products, and heavy fines are issued to the importer.

And for electronics with wireless, they still just ignore everything. No FCC ID, don't even have any silkscreening on the pcb or markings on the ICs. Nothing gets enforced.

Re: EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products

#109
Say what you may of Temu, and I do think more vetting of certain goods is a good idea, but they fill a very real need. In the part of Europe where I live, the choice is only between intermediaries for the same products coming from China. The local intermediaries sell a very limited picking at staggering margins. And when it comes to certain things, like electronic components, the choice is between importing (old) American stock with a German company as the intermediary, and that's $$$$ and many weeks of shipping, or using Temu or Aliexpress.

There's something unpleasantly snobbish with the way business is done here, a spirit of "if you have to ask the price, our business is not for you". For example, in Instagram, "Local offerings" pop up all the time in the feed. The ones which are truly local end up in a "call us to know more" button, no pricing info disclosed. The ones that show actual prices tend to be shell companies with no employees, no doubt a thin wrapper around an importer from Asia.

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