The European Union accepted a plan online retailer Temu offered to comply with the bloc's digital content rulebook after it was fined 200 million euros ($224.1 million) over what regulators called a breach of the law.
The European Commission said Monday that Temu offered to assess its content moderation limitations and look into how its user recommendation software could amplify the spread of illegal goods on its own platform.
The EU's executive arm fined Temu--a subsidiary of PDD Holdings--in May, saying European consumers were very likely to come across illegal goods on the e-commerce group's platform.
Under the Digital Services Act, companies classed as very large online platforms must carry out risk assessments to ensure their services are safe. The commission started investigating the company under the DSA in 2024, and said in its May verdict that Temu's 2024 risk assessment fell short of the rulebook's standards. Temu said at the time the commission's investigation related to a historic assessment that doesn't reflect the current state of its systems.
The commission set an Aug. 28 deadline for Temu to submit an action plan to comply with the rules. That plan, it said, also includes a pledge to carry out a platform-specific risk analysis, use reliable metrics to gauge how effective it is at reducing the risk of illegal content being spread online and examine the influence of sellers exploiting Temu's features to spread potentially illegal sales listings.
The commission said the company now has four months to conduct a fresh interim risk assessment that covers a six-month period.
A Temu spokesperson said it welcomed the commission's approval and that its action plan reflects an enhanced risk assessment methodology "that has evolved significantly since the obligation first became applicable to us in 2024."
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