The European Union is planning to make e-commerce platforms such as Temu, Shein and Amazon Marketplace liable for dangerous or illegal products sold online, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.Customs reforms would oblige online platforms to provide data before goods arrive in the EU, allowing offici
    • Maalus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      6 hours ago

      Depends on an issue. You mostly hear about the good stuff, not the bad / idiotic part.

    • VieuxQueb@lemmy.caEnglish
      8·
      10 hours ago

      As a Canadian I wish we could be part of EU instead of being stuck with loud, polluting, selfish, violent neighbors.

        • skaffi@infosec.pubEnglish
          1·
          3 hours ago

          I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, as the old world order continues to change into… this, that we will see an expansion/rework/new layer on top of the current association agreements. Something more like associate member states.

          My guess is that it will take a form where associate states will have no explicit political power (no elected politicians, and not likely any appointed political positions either), but will have greater access to less direct influence, that could potentially-eventually even include formal rights of hearing with the Commission, a right to speak in Parliament, and/or guarantees of consultation on certain matters.

          I think this could become a more standardised system than the current association agreements. In many ways it would be like having different membership tracks, with different benefits and requirements. I expect that realist school foreign policy is going to overwhelmingly dominate global foreign affairs, with the idealist school being relegated to mainly having influence in regional foreign affairs. As such, I think standards on political and human rights that these associate members will have to live up to are going to be an order og magnitude less strict than what is required of full members. There will probably be other requirements that will be more important, such as certain foreign policy commitments.

          As for level of integration, I would imagine that such an associate member would be able to become fully integrated in many areas, but on an opt-in basis, possibly with almost standardised package deals, where certain benefits and obligations (both legal and economic) are bestowed together. Things like Schengen membership, or access to some of the large redistribute programs (agricultural subsidies come to mind) will remain very exclusive, and membership in these will continue to be largely political, rather than something that can be accessible to any associate member that fulfills certain objective criteria.

          Do I have any special insights that make me able to predict the future? No. No one can predict the future. But I think these are some pretty solid guesses.

        • sodamnfrolic@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          1·
          5 hours ago

          There’s been talks on Turkey joining, which is mostly outside of Europe, but it’s not even close. With Canada it doesn’t make much sense, it’ll always be closer to US. Maybe something resembling NATO or UN could be introduced, uniting all the still sane countries, but that would be short lived given how hard it is even for UN and NATO to function in the current political climate and rising alt right movements all around Europe - I don’t think any country or organization is truly safe from those.

  • WIZARD POPE💫@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    14 hours ago

    Cool. Hurry up and get rid of them.

    On a separate note. I recently got a recall message from Aliexpress for a wireless charger. Was honestly quite surprised they actually cared.

    • Caveman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      12 hours ago

      Aliexpress quality control is much better than Stein and Temu. It’s reflected in the price. You have to toe the line or get removed as a seller if the product doesn’t match the description. I’ve bought phones of Aliexpress and a laptop and they all matched the brand and specifications. The laptop did come with a Chinese windows but a Linux install fixed that easily.

  • Obelix@feddit.orgEnglish
    35·
    18 hours ago

    That would be great. Currently you’re kind of fucked when it comes to customers rights: Amazon, but also nearly every other “platform” like eBay is full of chinese sellers. You order something and if their product burns down your house or harms you, you’re fucked. Or the seller is one of those dropshipping get richt quick idiots that is basically acting as fall guy for pushing unsafe products into Europe. If your house burns down, well, he is fucked, too.

    • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
      7·
      11 hours ago

      Because many of the sales on those platforms currently are classed as “import by private consumer”, directly between seller and buyer, the platform doesn’t get involved.

      At least Amazon and Aliexpress should only have to flip a switch, both have EU warehouses at which point the seller does the customs stuff and the buyer is not an importer, any more.

      The whole “private import” scheme was never meant for these kinds of trade volumes, anyway, border authorities have no chance to keep up and when they flag down your package it’s a huge pain in the ass because you’ll have to fetch the package, in person, from one of their offices which might be three towns over. And explain to the official that it wasn’t you who mislabelled the contents, or requested to do so.

    • talEnglish
      18·
      16 hours ago

      reads a few web pages

      I don’t know about the EU, but it looks like in the US, if Amazon is selling a product directly – as it once did for all products – it bears liability. But if it is just acting as an intermediary between a non-Amazon seller and a customer – kind of like how eBay works – it doesn’t. I assume that in that case, liability is on that seller.

      Might be the same sort of situation in the EU.

      I wonder if this EU directive just affects Amazon or also places like eBay. Amazon could presumably basically just sell stuff from Amazon in a worst-case scenario, but for places like eBay, I’d think that that’d have a huge impact on their business model.

      EDIT: Also, if the product description is an input into liability, which I’d guess might be the case…hmm. So, right now, a non-Amazon seller selling through Amazon can write their product description. But suppose it, I don’t know, sold a given product with a description that rendered it unsafe, like selling a box of rat poison as delicious candy. The rat poison itself might be safe if it were sold as rat poison, but not in the context of being sold as food. If Amazon is liable for that description, I’d think that they wouldn’t want to permit sellers to write their own descriptions. That seems like it’d have a big impact as to how they operate.