Resale platforms pledge to help French authorities track goods looted in protests

Paris - Consumer-to-consumer resale platforms such as Vinted, Leboncoin and Ebay, on which “a significant number of stolen items have been identified”, have pledged to collaborate with national authorities to “identify and report” this content, the government announced on Tuesday.

Following the looting of stores during the protests on October 17, suspicious listings proliferated on these platforms, prompting the government to summon them to put an end to these offences.

Major platforms including Vinted, Amazon and Ebay met on Monday evening with minister of trade Serge Papin and delegate minister for digital affairs Anne Le Hénanff. Representatives from Leboncoin, Meta and TikTok also attended alongside the French Marketplace Alliance and the French E-commerce Federation (Fevad).

Representatives from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice were also present.

The platforms have made four commitments, the government stated on Tuesday via a press release.

First, they agreed to “strengthen their cooperation with national authorities to identify and report potentially illicit content, forward reports to investigative services and share any data useful for identifying handlers of stolen goods”.

They must also implement “enhanced monitoring” and “intensify moderation to detect listings likely to involve looted products (abnormally low prices, batches of new products, presence of security tags or explicit mention of theft)”.

“This vigilance must also cover purchase requests,” warned the government, which indicated that the platforms are required to “inform consumers of the risks and penalties incurred for handling stolen goods”.

Finally, these e-commerce sites must “regularly provide authorities with a quantified report on the removal of problematic listings, the measures implemented and the reports forwarded to authorities, with initial feedback expected within 48 hours”.