Wish, persona non grata on the French web. A few weeks before the end of the year celebrations, and while the French are actively preparing their Christmas shopping with their sights set on black friday this Friday, the ax fell. According to our information, after more than a year of investigation and months of relaunching with the online sales platform, the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) orders to leave of this Wednesday morning to dereference the American site Wish.
Within a week at most, Google, Microsoft or Apple – the main search engines – will no longer refer to this marketplace, the seventh most used in France. Unheard of on the Old Continent! Concretely, if you search for example on Google for the latest Cars plush, Christmas decorations or even a favorite beauty product, the search engine will no longer redirect you to Wish.
The reason ? “We took 140 products from the site and most of them were non-compliant, even dangerous,” says Bercy. This is particularly true for toys of which 95% were non-compliant (the address of the manufacturer or the origin of the product were not indicated) of which 45% were even … dangerous!
“Some toys were made with small elements that came off too easily, at the risk of being ingested and causing suffocation in the little ones,” Bercy specifies. The same goes for electrical devices, 95% of which were non-compliant, with 90% of risky products. Example: the Christmas electric garland, capable of igniting your Christmas tree… and your home. Finally, costume jewelry, often less than five euros, dangerous in 62% of cases.
“These players flout the regulations on product safety and that is unacceptable,” said Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire. There is no reason to tolerate online what we do not accept in physical stores. “Especially since the agents of the DGCCRF ordered the American site, created in 2010 by a former Google engineer, to comply within two months. Wasted effort ! According to Bercy, the bosses based in San Francisco did not deign to respond to the injunctions. “When we notified them that a product was dangerous, they were required to remove the ad within 24 hours,” explains the Ministry of the Economy. They removed the targeted ad in most cases. But they were not doing anything to prevent the item from reappearing through other sellers. Or, even worse, be reposted by the same seller. “
Another complaint: the after-sales service in the event of dangerous products. “Wish does not indicate the reason for the recall, remains evasive, while the use of the article is risky”, deplores Bercy. Contacted, the American site was not able, this Tuesday, to answer our questions. “Digital players, and in particular marketplaces, now know that they can no longer sell any product with impunity! », Loose Alain Griset, the Minister of VSEs and SMEs.
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But is it still enough? This “delisting considerably reduces the risk that a consumer stumbles upon offers of dangerous products”, estimates Cedric O, the Secretary of State in charge of Digital. If, in the corridors of Bercy, we therefore bomb the chest, we nevertheless admit that the lethal weapon has not (yet) been used. “The blocking of the domain name, that is to say preventing total access to the site on the French web, that would be the ultimate sanction, we recognize. But our response must be graduated. For the moment, Wish is still responding a little to our requests… ”Consequence: French fans of the platform which claims 100 million users around the world can still do their shopping there by typing the site address directly, without go through a search engine.
Despite everything, this administrative sanction will directly hit Wish’s wallet. And it is not the only one. A second procedure, this time judicial, has in fact been under investigation for a year for “deceptive commercial practices”. The sentence could be heavy for Wish: two years in prison and a fine of up to 10% of turnover.