On March 15th, reports surfaced indicating that the European Union Commission has officially launched an in-depth investigation into Global AliExpress, the international e-commerce platform owned by Chinese tech giant Alibaba.
This marks the third formal investigation by the EU Commission under the Digital Services Act (DSA), following probes into TikTok and social media platform X.
According to the announcement, the investigation will primarily assess whether Global AliExpress violates the DSA, focusing on five aspects: risk management and mitigation, content moderation and internal complaint-handling mechanisms, transparency of advertising and recommendation systems, traceability of traders, and data access for researchers.
Under the DSA, digital companies are broadly categorized into intermediary services, hosting services, online platforms, and very large online platforms (VLOPs), each with defined responsibilities and obligations.
In essence, the larger the company, the more users it serves, and the more diverse its services, the greater the responsibilities and obligations it must fulfill.
Previously, Global AliExpress disclosed having 104.3 million monthly active users in the EU, thereby being classified as a VLOP. According to regulations, AliExpress must fulfill a series of obligations outlined in the DSA four months after being designated as such.
Recently, Apple also made concessions to the EU, including allowing EU users to download applications from websites for the first time and opening up third-party app stores, enabling developers to directly offer promotions to users in any manner they choose.
