SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s personal data protection watchdog said on Thursday it is looking into consumer data practices of major overseas shopping platforms, as South Korean use of Chinese e-commerce platforms like Alibaba’s AliExpress and Temu jumped.
The Personal Information Protection Commission said it has been investigating overseas e-commerce platforms since last month, after a parliament audit last year raised questions about data handling by platforms such as AliExpress and PDD Holdings’ international facing discount e-commerce platform Temu.
It is checking the appropriateness of their personal information processing policies, overseas transfers, and safety measures, and will take steps if there are any violations of South Korean law, the commission said in a statement.
The announcement follows South Korea’s antitrust regulator, Fair Trade Commission (FTC), sending inspectors to the office of AliExpress’s South Korean unit last week to probe the platform’s consumer protection practices, according to Yonhap news agency.
The FTC, Alibaba and Temu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
South Koreans’ e-commerce purchases from China including from platforms like AliExpress and Temu rose 121% on year in 2023 to 3.3 trillion won ($2.48 billion), taking up nearly half of its total overseas e-commerce purchases, according to Statistics Korea data.
AliExpress, which began services in South Korea in 2018, invested about 100 billion won in the country in 2023 to expand its footprint, Daishin Securities analyst Lee Jee-eun said.
Investors are watching whether it and other Chinese e-commerce platforms’ fast user growth in South Korea will affect established players such as Naver Shopping and Coupang, although faster shipping and easy returns of local firms may keep the influence of Chinese platforms’ price competitiveness at bay, Seoul-based analysts have said.
($1 = 1,330.4600 won)
(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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