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Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin is taking legal action against Chinese fast fashion retailer Temu, alleging the company’s “deceptive tactics” are harming consumers.
Announcing the lawsuit on Tuesday, Griffin said Tem is “more than just an online marketplace.” [but] It is a data theft business that uses online marketplaces as a means to an end.”
Griffin’s lawsuit targets Tem’s parent company, PDD Holdings, which China Market Research Group founder Sean Lane describes as “the monster of Chinese e-commerce.”
Griffin alleged that the company uses spyware and malware in its apps to obtain consumer data of Americans as well as other data.
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The Temu logo appears on the phone’s screen above the keyboard. (Nikos Pekkiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images/Getty Images)
“The average American looks at a shopping app like any other shopping app, but Temu captures all kinds of data, not just data related to sales,” Griffin said.
Griffin said the app contains code written to evade detection and bypass security screening.
“You might see incredibly low prices and think, ‘how can they sell them so cheap?’ Because that’s not their job. Their job is the data, and as I pointed out, selling their product – the market – is a means to an end.”
The Temu app interface is displayed on a mobile phone in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China, October 28, 2022. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Griffin noted that the company is run by former members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
FOX Business has reached out to the company for a response to the lawsuit.
Tem’s Super Bowl ad earlier this year drew ire from lawmakers over the company’s ties to products made with forced labor in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and its data-sharing policies.
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Tech’s Super Bowl ads, which cost about $7 million each – the going rate for a 30-second ad during this year’s big game – are part of a $3 billion marketing strategy this year for the company as it tries to grab market share from companies like Amazon.com Inc. The company also ran a Super Bowl ad last year in a bid to gain market share among U.S. consumers.
