EU fines Temu €200M for allowing sale of illegal products • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, May 30, 2026, 8:46 AM UTC

selfhoster1312 wrote: post #398

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that help you if someone is drop shipping fire hazards and trying to prosecute them means they just dissolve and create a new shell company? Also, how does it get you anything over simple liability for fraud and harm? Why does the honest seller have to write a document if nobody is going to look at it and the dishonest one is going to skip doing it anyway?

I think the point of the parent, correct me if i'm wrong, was precisely that current EU regulations are insufficient in protecting customers and really not a burden to put any product on the market, and that anyone arguing regulation is against the little guy is talking in bad faith.

Not if your proposal is to add more of the regulations that are against the little guy than already exist.

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

#402

Post by davkan » Sat, May 30, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

DANmode wrote: post #206

BrtByte wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I still think chargers and children's toys are exactly where the line should be drawn

No, let them suck on the poison Happy Meal toy instead. The line should be drawn by parents. The paternalism really has gone too far, and people are (incorrectly and dangerously) expecting to be protected now.

Personally I’m happy to not have to perform that level personal due diligence for all aspects of my consumption and engagement with society and to instead pay more to reduce my risk via regulation, even if that’s less effective.

And I think that sentiment is significantly more representative of the populace outside of some edge cases around speech and vices. The vast majority of people do not want to have to investigate if their food has too much rat shit in it. They want the rat shit out of the meat or the meat not to be on the shelves.

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

#403

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, May 30, 2026, 9:08 AM UTC

selfhoster1312 wrote: post #400

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that you fail to present any argument and are only retreating into indignation at the existence of the problem. You present no viable solution or counterargument to the criticism of the status quo.

Jail the executives and engineers cutting corners. For some reason, you can spend years in jail for cannabis possession or an online post criticizing Macron or the police, but people who actually commit murder and ecocide by cutting costs in engineering products, or who import such bad-quality products face exactly zero consequences. Then we can't drink our water, can't eat anything from our soil, sometimes can't eve…

The engineers are in China and thereby outside your jurisdiction. Likewise the executives of the company that actually makes the thing. The only people in your jurisdiction are tangentially related intermediaries with no real knowledge or control over the product. It's essentially proposing to punish FedEx for shipping a package or PayPal for doing a funds transfer if unbeknownst to them the vendor's product is of low quality. It's desperate and ineffective, because how is the generic transportation/warehousing/payments company supposed to tell if any of a million randos' products are junk?

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

#404

Post by croon » Sat, May 30, 2026, 9:40 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #383

croon wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sellers are in practice anonymous, and the consumer facing Temu (or Shein, or Aliexpress, etc) very much markets to consumers, yet shirk any responsibility. They are Walmart but ignore the little accountability Walmart faces. Of course Temu is responsible for things I buy in the Temu app, and pay Temu for, which then Temu ships to me.

> The sellers are in practice anonymous, and the consumer facing Temu (or Shein, or Aliexpress, etc) very much markets to consumers, yet shirk any responsibility. They are Walmart but ignore the little accountability Walmart faces. They are not Walmart. > Of course Temu is responsible for things I buy in the Temu app, and pay Temu for, which then Temu ships to me. If you send money to someone in the PayPal app, are t…

Paypal is not fronting products or shipping them.

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

#405

Post by victorbjorklund » Sat, May 30, 2026, 1:23 PM UTC

miohtama wrote: post #340

victorbjorklund wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why even have consumer laws then if consumers are punished if their Samsung phone explodes?

It depends if Samsung is imported by a consumer or a company that takes liability

So pretty much just pay for the stamp from a shell company that will shield the legal risk? So just more expensive for consumers and more profit for lawyers that can just set up single purpose shell companies to sign off on the import?

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

#406

Post by victorbjorklund » Sat, May 30, 2026, 1:24 PM UTC

pixel_popping wrote: post #369

victorbjorklund wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Checking what? Should they open 16 million packages per day and check if they have a CE sign that anyone can just fake?

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

#407

Post by DANmode » Sat, May 30, 2026, 3:34 PM UTC

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #395

DANmode wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet you still have children chewing toxic chunks of gypsum drywall, because people now assume if you can buy it, it’s safe , because their responsibility has been relieved of them.

I'm not understanding your example; as far as I know gypsum/gypsum drywall isn't toxic.

If you let your kid eat drywall compounds, and inhale drywall dust in the process, you’re not only missing my point, you’re proving it.

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

#408

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, May 30, 2026, 6:41 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #404

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The sellers are in practice anonymous, and the consumer facing Temu (or Shein, or Aliexpress, etc) very much markets to consumers, yet shirk any responsibility. They are Walmart but ignore the little accountability Walmart faces. They are not Walmart. > Of course Temu is responsible for things I buy in the Temu app, and pay Temu for, which then Temu ships to me. If you send money to someone in the PayPal app, are t…

Paypal is not fronting products or shipping them.

So you want to sue Craigslist or FedEx?

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

#409

Post by jeppester » Sat, May 30, 2026, 7:54 PM UTC

victorbjorklund wrote: post #339

jeppester wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you played a boardgame, wouldn't you be upset if someone won the game easily, because they decided to just break all the rules?

The rules where retail companies can extract value for no added value from consumers? And no the rules has not changed. It has always been allied to compete with importers trying to screw over consumers. Which law are you claiming was changed?

The rules that make someone responsible for when a product is dangerous or broken.

How does that not add any value?

Temu is free to take the same responsibility, but they don't.

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

#410

Post by jeppester » Sat, May 30, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

slaw wrote: post #282

jeppester wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you played a boardgame, wouldn't you be upset if someone won the game easily, because they decided to just break all the rules?

what kind of board game has rules buy for one coin, do nothing, sell for 10 coins?

If it was that simple, surely someone would undercut all the retailers that follow the rules - while also following the rules.

Temu is just deliberately ignoring any rules.