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

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

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the line should be much earlier than that. But even with this very thin line, like the parent said, the deficient products are everywhere. Just look at the recalls in any major store here (Carrefour, Action, Leclerc). And that's for the main brands/distributors, go into any bazaar or market and you'll find the exact same products you find on Aliexpress/Temu, but with 10x price markup, like the parent said. Do…

There are generally two ways governments hold companies accountable for dangerous products. The first is liability. If they're selling chargers that burn down houses, they get sued, and they don't want to get sued, so they don't want to sell chargers that burn down houses. The second is regulatory requirements. This one is generally worse. The incumbents capture the regulators to e.g. have the law require their techn…

> Customers expect some products to be dangerous and rely on product reviews to determine which ones.

.. which are of course the easiest thing to fake.

> then overpriced incumbents use their influence over the laws to target any new supplier that tries to establish a trusted brand, which causes the foreign suppliers to have to sell through dozens of unknown labels so they can continue to dissolve them if any of them get prosecuted.

This is not an accurate description of new market entry for .. well, anything? And what are the new entrants being prosecuted for? Is it by any chance unsafe products?

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little amusing that he's seemingly linked to the dangerous fuses using his Amazon affiliate links. Hey, may well make a buck if someone's going to buy them anyway, right?

I think the affiliate links work such that any product bought when the lead into the site is the affiliate code will generate affiliate rewards. So even if you don't buy the crap that's linked, maybe you'll buy something else and that counts.

That’s how they work, and often affiliate links are programmatically added by plugins.

I’ve seen some reviewers intentionally break links to bad products.

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

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This talking point is everywhere in this thread. But bear in mind that you have no clue whether two chargers (for example) are the same without disassembling them and checking. Noname Chinese manufacturers are very good at producing things that are superficially similar to other things. It does not mean that two widgets that look similar actually are . The main difference with most physical stores is that those will…

> But bear in mind that you have no clue whether two chargers (for example) are the same without disassembling them and checking. Frequently, the listing uses the exact same photo . It's especially clear for clothes listings, as there's usually a model.

There’s apparently one model, and she has clothes photoshopped on her millions of times.

I’ve seen model photos of clothes that clearly doesn’t exist until after you place the order.

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

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, Anker or store brand is NOT identical to Temu crap.

Dollar store stock is likely identical to Temu.

No, dollar store is a rank above the rankest shit from Temu.

There’s name brand (Apple, Anker, etc → made in China but made well), then there’s off-brand (cheaper than above but still made decently), then store-brand (Harbor Freight and friends, too; cheaper but still functional, not quite as nice), then dollar-store brand (barely functional but usually still “safe”), then Temu-shit (often not fit for purpose and fake certifications, actually dangerous).

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

#365
post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've already tried the third one in the US before the FDA. A ton of people kept dying. Milk was filled with borax and formaldehyde, coffee was cut with sawdust/charred bone/lead, spices were often 100% counterfeit. The market (heavily) incentivized fraud. In New York, in one year (1857), 8000 infants died to "swill milk" [0]. The second option (FDA and regulation) wasn't lobbied for, and the Food Bill of 1902 actual…

Invoking 1857 is not a valid argument really, cause consumer priorities were different. Cheaper with some level of risk (which today's American, or German would consider excessive) was preferred option hence the market response as it was - at least it's a reasonable guess. In less rich countries it is how things work right now.

Industries dump toxic waste into waterways if they can get away with it in the US today (literally today [0]). I agree that I might not be specifically worried about borax milk if FDA was reversed, but I would absolutely expect risky shortcuts in food offerings.

The incentives in the market has never changed. That's what regulation is for, shifting market incentives/forces to favor consumers/society.

[0] https://www.kptv.com/2026/05/28/woman-sentenced-conspiring-d...

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be sure? How can you get the information to know whether or not your children's toys, your medicines, your electic equipment, wall paint, food, and everything else you consume or use is safe? You can't. So... abstain from everything? Make everything yourself - how will you have time with a job? Will you know the food you grow is safe and that your ground isn't polluted with things you can't test for at ho…

I don’t need to know if the plow has lead - I just test the Cheerios. Try again. You can answer the questions the exact same ways the other path uses, yes, and often with more rigor/vigor than just “legal minimum”.

I seriously doubt you check every batch of foodstuffs entering your house.

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

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really hits hard when you have to go to Home Depot to buy 6 spade connectors for $7.99 to use in a project with 3.3V 300mA max, when you can buy about 500 of them from Aliexpress for the same price.

And this is how I ended up with bags full of resistors, transistors, leds etc. I can buy 3 from the local store or a BAG OF ONE HUNDRED from Aliexpress. Not a hard decision tbh.

It’s not a hard decision - and I was making it wrong for many years.

Now I gladly pay Home Depot or friends to maintain stock for me so my house isn’t filled with bags of shit I’ll never practically use.

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

#368

Does Amazon or eBay get the same fine? Haha it’s the same people on all of these sites …. Just some dropshipping ?

I've been done by illegal electronics on Amazon too many times. They don't seem to care at all. You can still buy chargers on them that are in an advisory red list on gov UK....

I'm not against consumer protection but these moves seem political, Europe hate China just like Russia, they want to counter China economically.

Otherwise why fine out of the blue when this had been going for years.

And what about western countries violate those laws, lobbied or deliberately turning a blind eye.

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

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robots is the only way.

Robots doing what?

Checking packages, with humanoids and other forms of robotics, it's possible that law enforcement will become efficient. Right now almost any package containing illegal substance will cross the US/EU without issue, that's due to human flaws, robots will be so much better at detecting stealth and so-on (also because Scent and Xray and so-on will be built-in them), the exact reason illicit marketplaces available on Tor exists is because of human flaws.
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