EU goes after Shein over child sex dolls, addictive shopping

Brussels (CN) — Brussels is looking into Shein for selling child-like sex dolls and building addictive shopping features, opening a formal investigation Tuesday as regulators crack down on Chinese e-commerce platforms flooding Europe with illegal products.

The commission — the EU’s executive arm — will investigate whether Shein has adequate systems to block banned products from reaching European shoppers, particularly items that could constitute child sexual abuse material like the dolls.

Brussels is also targeting Shein’s gamification features — like giving shoppers reward points for engagement — which regulators say could harm users’ well-being. The investigation will also look at whether Shein’s recommendation algorithms are transparent enough and whether the platform offers users a non-personalized browsing option.

It’s the commission’s first formal enforcement action against Shein under its tech regulation Digital Services Act, ramping up pressure after months of back-and-forth. Shein has 108 million monthly active users in the bloc, according to EU figures.

Shein said it’s taking the investigation seriously. “Over the last few months, we have continued to invest significantly in measures to strengthen our compliance with the DSA,” the company said Tuesday in statements shared with Courthouse News, noting it’s rolled out age-verification tech across the EU and beefed up protections for younger users.

“In the EU, illegal products are prohibited — whether they are on a store shelf or on an online marketplace,” said Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty. “We will assess whether Shein is respecting these rules and their responsibility.”

The probe follows three requests for information Brussels sent Shein starting in June 2024, asking for details on how it protects consumers and minors and how transparent its algorithms are. Tuesday’s move shows those answers didn’t cut it.

The investigation also follows an October incident in which French authorities found Shein selling child-like sex dolls, weapons disguised as camping gear and prescription medication. In November, officials seized 200,000 packages at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, determining that eight in 10 items violated French law.

A French court later rejected the government’sbid to suspend Shein’s website, after which Shein imposed a global ban on all sex dolls.

The company said Tuesday it sped up safeguards around age-restricted products after last year’s issues, including working with third-party providers on age verification.

Shein joins fellow Chinese retailers AliExpress and Temu in facing tech regulation enforcement. Regulators have been investigating AliExpress since March 2024, while Temu was charged last year with failing to properly assess risks of illegal products on its platform. The parallel probes reflect growing European concern over what officials have called a “tsunami” of cheap Chinese imports that often fail to meet EU safety and content standards. Brussels ended a customs loophole in December allowing duty-free shipments, with 91% of such parcels coming from China.

The commission issued its first-ever DSA fine in December — 120 million euros ($142 million) against X — more than two years after the law took effect for major platforms. Just last week, regulators preliminarily found that TikTok’s addictive features like infinite scroll and autoplay violate the law, demanding the platform fundamentally redesign core features. That case marked the first time any authority set a legal standard for addictive design on social media, citing research showing such features shift users’ brains into “autopilot mode.”

The push to crack down on addictive design has emerged as a key enforcement priority. Brussels has opened parallel investigations into Meta’s Facebook and Instagram over similar concerns about features that could foster compulsive use among minors. The commission has also been scrutinizing age verification practices, launching probes into major porn platforms over failures to protect minors.

Ireland’s media regulator will help with the investigation since Shein has its EU headquarters there.

Brussels can now dig deeper with more information requests, interviews and potentially interim measures. There’s no deadline for wrapping up — it depends on what is discovered and Shein’s cooperation. If Brussels finds violations, Shein could face fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue — potentially totaling billions.

Courthouse News correspondent Yuval Molina is based in Brussels, Belgium.