By Charlotte Hazard
Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has filed a lawsuit against the Chinese-owned online marketplace Temu for allegedly stealing Americans’ data.
“Temu is sort of like a cheap Amazon with cheap goods,” Hilgers said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “And as we know, cheap things do oftentimes come with a price.”
Hilgers explained that Temu is set up in a way that can gain access to a user’s smartphone without having to go through the terms of agreements process by getting around Apple’s App Store requirements.
“They do it without even having the kind of boilerplate agreements that we might generally expect, like, ‘Hey, we’re going to read your text messages. Is that okay?'” he said. “They could access your text messages, your microphone, your app, all your other apps, all the sensitive data that’s on your particular store on your phone.”
The lawsuit was filed earlier this month, and you can read it here:
“Temu’s platform fuels a whole host of other harms,” the lawsuit reads. “The examples are legion: the platform is awash in products infringing copyrights and other intellectual property, Temu engages in “greenwashing,” and it has platformed sellers who use forced labor for the production of goods.”
Hilgers said that Temu isn’t just taking American users’ data, but also their intellectual property.
“They’re enticing Americans to use their software, which, by the way, when you’re shopping on their store site, a lot of times, they are ripping off intellectual property from Americans all over the country,” he said.
Hilgers also said that when using other platforms, they are legally required to inform the users about the use of personal data of the users.
The case is only the latest in a series of lawsuits against Temu, dating as far back as at least 2023, according to trade journal fashiondive.com. Although Just the News was unable to reach Temu for comment, a spokesperson for the company told the outlet in a similar claim that “We strongly oppose the allegations contained within it.”
