The European Commission has fined AliExpress more than $625 million, the largest penalty so far under the Digital Services Act, after finding that the marketplace failed to control illegal and unsafe goods sold to European shoppers.
The Commission said AliExpress did not adequately assess or reduce risks tied to counterfeit, illegal and dangerous products on its platform. The decision follows a June 2025 order requiring AliExpress to bring its systems into line with the DSA. According to the Commission, the company did not make the required fixes.
The case is less about one bad listing than about the machinery around millions of listings. The Commission said AliExpress lacked enough dedicated staff to remove dangerous and counterfeit goods, and that its systems let sellers dodge checks with minimal effort.
How sellers slipped past the checks
According to the Commission, some sellers could avoid stricter screening by placing products in the wrong category before posting them. That meant items that should have faced tougher review could pass through lighter controls.
The Guardian reported that staffing was so thin that some moderators had only “tens of seconds” to decide whether a flagged product complied with EU rules. The Commission said it found millions of products returning to the site after removal flags, with some staying online for more than a month.
The Commission also criticized AliExpress’s brand authorization system, which was supposed to help police counterfeit goods. Regulators said the system was ineffective and understaffed. They also found that AliExpress did not punish traders selling illegal products in the way its own policy said it would.
Regulators said the platform’s recommendation and advertising systems made the problem worse. Rather than only failing to remove illegal goods, AliExpress’s systems could also put them in front of shoppers. The Commission said testing found a high volume of illegal products still circulating, including unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics, despite the company’s moderation work.
AliExpress also relied on one quantitative metric to judge whether its controls were working, according to the Commission. Regulators said that measure did not capture the scale of consumer harm.
AliExpress says it will appeal
AliExpress told Ars Technica it was “surprised” by what it called a “disproportionate” fine. The company said it plans to appeal, arguing that regulators ignored its risk management framework and improvements it says it has made.
The company also said its EU business is much smaller than its China business, and that it spends substantial resources on risk assessment, product safety and consumer protection. AliExpress said it remains committed to its obligations to consumers.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen rejected scale as a defense. She said one in five Europeans shops monthly at retail sites such as AliExpress, Temu and Shein, and said online marketplaces must identify and address risks systematically. “Scale is not an excuse,” Virkkunen said.
The AliExpress penalty is far larger than earlier DSA fines. X was fined nearly $140 million after the Commission found, among other violations, that Elon Musk’s paid blue-check system made it easier to mislead users about verification. Temu later received a penalty of more than $225 million after evidence indicated EU consumers were very likely to encounter illegal items on that platform.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
