Wish, dismissed of his summary against Bercy, will not be reinstated by search engines

This is a victory for the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF).

The American online sales platform Wish was dismissed in its summary proceedings against the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, which had requested and obtained its delisting from the main search engines.

The Paris administrative court rejected Wish's arguments, stressing in particular that the platform, accused of selling dangerous products, had not demonstrated that it had complied with Bercy's injunctions to ensure better safety of its products.

Search engines applied Bercy's decision

In July, the ministry had ordered "the company to stop deceiving the consumer on the nature of the products sold, on the risks inherent in their use and on the controls carried out".

Believing that Wish did not comply with this request, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire had requested on November 23 the dereference of Wish from the main search engines, applying for the first time in France a new provision voted in 2020 by the Parliament.

Search engines have applied the decision of the Minister of the Economy.

The Wish app has been removed from Apple and Google's app stores, and no longer appears in responses from search engines like Google and Bing.

Wish continues to be accessible to French Internet users via their web browser, but its removal from search engine results must cut a large part of its traffic.

90% of electrical devices deemed dangerous

After Bercy's decision, Wish defended itself by declaring that the platform "still complies with the requests for withdrawal (of products from the sale) of the DGCCRF", and announced that it would initiate a legal action against this action that the company considers “illegal and disproportionate”.

Out of 140 products sold on Wish and analyzed by the DGCCRF, a large number had been identified as non-compliant.

Thus, 90% of the electrical devices analyzed were considered dangerous, as were 62% of costume jewelry and 45% of toys.