Posted by jjp 7 hours ago
… which found that a high percentage of chargers purchased through Temu failed basic electrical safety tests. It also found that a high proportion of baby toys posed safety risks, containing chemicals above legal limits or featuring small detachable parts that presented suffocation hazards…
If you sell something on your site, or allow users to post something on your site, you should have some liability for the consequences.
But this is an internet store.
Just image having a mandatory political party inside every American corporation which the board has no control over.
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/05/01/...
America is not China, but how close is it getting?
Generally speaking, international direct-to-consumer e-commerce is a problem for trying to enforce these kinds of rules. The whole model of checks at the border works well for massive bulk shipments, which not only are few enough in number that customs have a chance of doing a proper job on them, but there's also a commercial importer taking a large financial risk on the shipment and therefore 1) having an incentive to ensure they import something safe to begin with, 2) they can be practically fined/sued by authorities if they screw up. But when you have myriad tiny operations selling direct to consumers, the consumer is the importer, and there's no local representative for the manufacturer that you can actually sue. It's effectively a quite lawless area. Being able to do direct imports is an important freedom, and this kind of laxity is inevitable, but it's understandable the EU wants to do something about the flood of poor-quality goods that are terrible for fair competition, the environment, and health and safety.
In the old days, when an importer purchased Chinese goods in bulk and resold them, import checks were commonplace.... AND the importer was legally responsible for paying import duties and selling goods to the public that were legal and met safety standards.
Now that any individual can order direct from China (with cheap subsidised postage!), the floodgates of untaxed and dangerous shite are open.
One solution is to address the subsidised postage that makes this state of affairs possible.
The old system of spot inspections worked because most import volume was from known, repeat importers.
In my country the government is pushing those companies to have local warehouses. So if items are bulk imported by the marketplace, in theory it should be easier to inspect.
Or is the intention of the law to allow for an unlimited number of supposedly illegal goods to circulate freely within the EU, just fined appropriately?
https://cemarkingassociation.co.uk/latest-news/ce-marking-an...
https://www.kimuagroup.com/news/differences-between-ce-and-c...
https://starfishmedical.com/resource/conformite-europeenne-m...
HOWEVER, there are a lot of fake CE marks printed by dodgy companies who make the same shitty products that gets imported via Temu. They are already in the business of selling contraband and dangerous factory seconds, no need for conspiracies to give a legitimate twist to their contraband business.
The policemen controlling imports don't have the competency to check for faults, so we get this situation where specialists regularly sample the products, and heavy fines are issued to the importer.
Unless I’m missing something obvious, enforcing regulatory compliance from the army of hustlers that is their vendor market would be expensive or impossible.
I try to a avoid Temu, but they have some good traits, too, like quick and convinient shipping.
I bet you never heard of Microsoft or Google.