France targets Vinted for failure to prevent underage access to adult content

Child protection chief asked regulator to probe over ads exposing minors to porn

Sarah El Hairy is seen on board a boat during a visit at the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm, off the coast of the Guerande peninsula in western France, Sept 22, 2022. REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/Pool

France's child protection agency chief Sarah El Hairy has asked the regulator to investigate second-hand clothes marketplace Vinted for failing to prevent minors accessing adult content, in another move against e-commerce giants in the country.

El Hairy asked TV and Internet regulator Arcom to probe Vinted after finding some classified ads on the platform allegedly redirected all users, even underage ones, to websites with pornographic content, she said in an interview on French TV channel France 3 on Sunday.

"Where there are children or teenagers, there are predators, and what they did this time is to use sales of ordinary objects to direct (users) towards pornographic sites," she said.

Vinted and Arcom did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

France is cracking down broadly on large foreign e-commerce leaders in an attempt to protect local retailers.

Many of these feel threatened by what they see as unfair competition from cheaper and better-marketed products on their own turf by large platforms from China such as AliExpress, Temu or Shein, or from the US such as eBay or Amazon.

A consumer watchdog opened investigations against five such platforms for violating rules on selling illicit products online a few days after Shein opened its first physical store in Paris.

The French crackdown echoes similar EU initiatives such as the Thursday decision to bring forward by one year customs duties on low-value parcels arriving in the bloc in an effort to slow down the flow of goods from China.