The online sales platform Wish was dismissed of its summary appeal against the Ministry of the Economy and Finance, which had requested and obtained its delisting from the main search engines, the Paris administrative court said on Friday.
The judge rejected Wish's arguments, stressing in particular that the platform, accused of selling dangerous products, had not shown that it had complied with Bercy's injunctions to ensure better safety of its products.
Read alsoGoogle Wish dereference of its search engine
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.
Removed from search engines
Search engines applied the Minister of the Economy's decision after about a week.
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.
Read alsoCan France ban the online sales site Wish on its territory?
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.
If Bercy's current sanction was not enough to bring Wish into the ranks, the government could completely ban the site on French territory.
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
”.
