The Kentucky Attorney General as announced that his office has filed a lawsuit against Temu, a popular online shopping platform out of China.
The lawsuit alleges that Temu illegally collects users’ data without their permission, allows access of that data to the Chinese government, steals the intellectual property of U.S.-owned entities, including Kentucky brands, and uses force labor from ethnic minorities in violation of United States trade policies.
Temu has risen in popularity to become the most-downloaded mobile app in the U.S. in 2023.
Temu is owned by a multibillion-dollar Chinese holding company, PDD Holdings, whose first retail app, Pinduoduo, was eventually banned from U.S. app stores for being malware.
The lawsuit also accuses Temo of numerous other types of consumer fraud, including advertising items that look nothing like the items that eventually arrive, to faking customer reviews, to using consumer payment information to order items the customer never asked for.