By akademiotoelektronik, 11/07/2022

Wish vs France: everything you need to know about this dereference affair

In France, the Wish site no longer appears on search engines such as Google.This follows a sanction from the Ministry of the Economy.Let us take stock of this case which promises to repeat of it.

Extract from an advertisement for Wish // Source: Wish

In France, the Wish site has been dereferenced from Google and the main search engines.This follows a sanction taken by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.Why take such a measure against Wish?What does Bercy blame the e-commerce platform?Will the case stop here?Let's take stock of having a good overall vision on this thorny subject.

Wish, what is it?

Based in the United States and a subsidiary of Contextlogic, Wish has always been controversial.The site is indeed known for the very low prices practiced there, but also for the large number of poor quality products found there.

If the service has existed since 2010, it is mainly from 2018 that Wish began to be known by the general public.You've undoubtedly seen at least one of the many television advertisements or on the web praising the merits of this e-commerce site.

YouTube ’ABONNON LINK in FRANDROC

In these promotional clips, several personalities (especially from the world of sport) staged themselves buying products on Wish.In addition, the platform is also famous for its algorithms which suggest purchases that are finely adapted to your profile.

Thus, in 2018 already, the association 60 million consumers already denounced Wish's practices by believing that the platform was "at the limits of legality".The dubious price reductions and the lack of clarity of offers were already accused (sometimes illustrated by a bad image).

What does France blame Wish?

Alerted by this kind of reporting, the DGCCRF opened an investigation into WISH from 2020. The goal was to clarify the suspicions of scams, false promotions and counterfeits on the site.Note that the Acronym DGCCRF is the Directorate General for Competition for Consumption and the Repression of Fraud, an administration under the supervision of the Ministry of the Economy.

However, a year later, it was precisely this same Ministry of the Economy who decided to apply sanctions against Wish, after the DGCCRF investigation.

Neymar in the middle of cards Wish // Source: Wish

The organization explains to the Parisian that after studying 140 products sold on Wish, "most were non -compliant, even dangerous".Example: 95 % of the electronic devices that were reviewed were considered non-compliant, that is to say that they did not correspond to the description given by the seller or that they presented a defect making them unusable.

Still on electronic devices, 90 % of them were completely qualified as dangerous.

What does the dereferency of Wish mean?

For the reasons mentioned above, the Ministry of the Economy in France has asked search engines to derefeute Wish.This means that on Google or Bing, for example, no more research results redirect the user to the sanctioned site, even if the request contains the word "wish".

To get to the e-commerce site, you must directly type the web address in the URL bar of your browser.For Wish, this is a real blow, because a lot of people used to go through Google to access the site of their choice.

The site is therefore always accessible in France, but it will lose a lot of traffic.Note also that even the Wish application has disappeared from the Play Store and the App Store.

What is Wish's reaction?

The showdown between Wish and the French government promises to be intense.The e-commerce site quickly split a press release to deny the accusations and announce a legal appeal to have the French sanction canceled that the firm considers "illegal and disproportionate".

Wish.com is an e-commerce site

"At Wish, we strive to offer the best customer experience and one of our main concerns is to provide quality products for our users," reads the blog article.The company also claims to invest "in a wide range of programs designed to attract and reward sellers who offer quality items, and limit the visibility of those who offer lesser quality items".

In addition, as a market platform (Market Place), she considers that she has "no legal obligation to carry out checks on the 150 million products offered for sale on our website".However, this line of defense risks being undermined.Indeed, in California, a court recently estimated that Amazon was responsible for all the products sold on its site.

Does France have the right to sanction Wish in this way?

Opposite, Minister Bruno Le Maire wants to show his determination and intends to sue the search engines that do not derefened Wish.Bercy's decision is also based on a desire to "implement for the first time in Europe the new online consumer protection powers provided by European law and transposed in France in the Consumer Code (articleL. 521-3-1) ”, read in the official press release (PDF).It is in this context that "can thus be ordered, for the most serious cases, dereferencing or blocking of access to a site or a application, or the blocking of a domain name".

Despite this, according to letter A, this sanction of the government could be censored by the Constitutional Council.It will therefore be necessary to wait for a while before knowing whether the request for dereferencing Wish by France is legitimate or not.

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