The European Commission has imposed a €550 million ($598 million USD) fine on AliExpress for failing to comply with its regulatory obligations under the Digital Services Act. The antitrust and digital watchdog determined that the e-commerce giant fell short of mandates requiring large online platforms to diligently assess and mitigate the systemic risks tied to the proliferation of illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products across its marketplace.
According to the Commission’s final findings, AliExpress consistently misjudged the operational scale needed to police its platform. The company relied on flawed automation metrics and critically overestimated its detection systems while maintaining an insufficient number of human moderators to handle the platform’s actual workload. Compounding the issue, the Commission’s internal testing revealed that AliExpress’ algorithmic recommender and advertising systems actively boosted the visibility of illegal products, pushing them directly to consumers before the platform could execute removals.
The regulatory enforcement action also highlights a widespread failure to implement effective mitigation measures once these systemic gaps were identified. The Commission noted that illicit items—ranging from dangerous cosmetics and unsafe children’s toys to extensive copyright infringements—frequently remained active online for several weeks after initial detection. Furthermore, malicious traders routinely evaded product compliance protocols simply by mis-categorizing items to exploit more flexible screening rules, a practice left unchecked due to inadequate verification staffing. The platform’s mandatory brand authorization framework, designed to curb the rampant sale of counterfeit goods, was also deemed completely ineffective and easily bypassed by bad actors, severely undercutting legitimate businesses within the Single Market.
The €550 million penalty reflects the gravity, duration, and user impact of the compliance failures, which persisted at least until the Commission issued its preliminary non-compliance findings in June 2025. While the regulator noted that the novelty of the Digital Services Act served as a partial mitigating factor in calculating the final fine, it emphasized that failing to execute foundational risk assessments represents an exceptionally severe breach of European digital law.
Looking forward, the tech platform has been ordered to take immediate corrective action and must submit a detailed remediation blueprint to the European Commission by October 20, 2026. This action plan will undergo a sequential review process, with the European Board for Digital Services providing a formal opinion within one month, followed by a final decision from the Commission establishing a strict implementation deadline. Continued non-compliance beyond these milestones could expose the e-commerce platform to further periodic penalty payments.