The French Ministry of Economic Affairs has lifted the censorship of online shop Wish.com. The decision comes after the company was fined millions of euros by a Paris criminal court for using false “instead” prices to feign discounts that did not exist. Wish.com founder Piotr Szulczewski was also ordered to pay 250,000 euros. The controversial censorship order had little effect as the shop continued to be prominently listed on search engines and app stores, despite the ban.
Wish.com is known for offering products at cheap prices, but it also has a reputation for selling illegal and dangerous goods and for handling complaints poorly. A recent investigation by c’t revealed that a smartphone with a 7.3-inch left-hand digging screen, bought from Wish.com, was anything but cheap. Instead of the advertised 12 GB RAM and 512 GB read-only memory, 1 GB RAM and 8 GB flash memory were actually installed.
France’s decision to ban Wish.com from search engines and app stores dates back to November 2021, but the company only implemented the ban half-heartedly. The new decision requires search engines and app stores to show the online shop’s listing “without delay”. Wish.com has stated that it now complies with regulations on instead prices, which require the cheapest price of the last 30 days to be given as a reference to the current price.
Despite the lifting of the censorship order, the company’s reputation remains tarnished. The French government’s decision to crackdown on instead prices was prompted by Wish.com’s practices. The company is said to have taken measures to ensure that products recognized as dangerous or inadmissible are and remain so in the future. However, it remains to be seen whether these measures will be enough to restore consumers’ trust in the platform.
