EU Commission takes action against AliExpress for DSA violations and illegal product sales

The European Commission has launched two formal proceedings against AliExpress under the Digital Services Act (DSA), reflecting the platform’s status as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) subject to stricter regulatory standards. As a result of the first action, AliExpress has made legally binding commitments to improve advertising transparency and the functionality of its recommender systems. The platform also pledged enhancements to its reporting and removal mechanisms for illegal items, complaint system, trader traceability, and researcher data access.

The Commission published preliminary findings that AliExpress breached multiple DSA rules by enabling the sale and distribution of illegal products such as unlicensed medicines, food supplements, and adult content concealed through hidden links and affiliate schemes. These findings highlight operational gaps: AliExpress was found to have allocated insufficient resources to content moderation and failed to consistently penalize sellers who broke platform rules. Systemic weaknesses in moderation allowed malicious actors to continue operations.

AliExpress may now review the Commission’s findings and respond, with an option to submit a corrective action plan. Should the identified violations be confirmed, the platform faces potential financial penalties and tighter regulatory obligations from the European Commission.