All About Temu: Who Owns The Popular Affordable Online Marketplace (2024)

FAQs

All About Temu: Who Owns The Popular Affordable Online Marketplace? ›

Temu's parent company is PDD Holdings, a multinational commerce group headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. PDD Holdings owns Temu and its sister company, Pinduoduo. It isn't easy to pinpoint Temu's exact origins. In a February 2023 SEC 6-K filing, Pinduoduo changed its name to PDD Holdings in a special resolution.

"Micro-influencers have strong communities, so their endorsem*nt means a strong trust towards these products," she explains. Temu is owned by Chinese giant PDD Holdings - "a monster in Chinese e-commerce," according to Shaun Rein, founder of the China Market Research Group.

Temu is a legitimate company and a functioning e-commerce site, but it lacks accreditation from the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which is the standard for major retailers. Many of the tech items being sold on the site look like those manufactured by major companies like Dell or HP, but they're not authentic.

Temu is a legitimate company owned by PDD Holdings, a Chinese company based in Shanghai. PDD Holdings also owns Pinduoduo, Temu's Chinese sister site. Temu takes advantage of tax exemption for low-priced goods that helps keep prices down for US consumers.

It also says that Temu "is purposefully and intentionally loaded with tools to execute dangerous malware and spyware activities on user devices." The app is so invasive that it's even designed to harvest users' personal photos and videos, cybersecurity experts warn.

The probe is warranted, critics say, because of anti-competitive practices skirting U.S. trade and public safety regulations; alleged use of slave laborers to make products sold at cut-rate prices; and advertising targeting children, low-income families and older Americans.

The US government accused Temu of potential data risks after Google suspended its sister site, e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, for containing malware. According to CNBC, analysts say Temu is less of a threat, and the risks associated with Pinduoduo were targeted at Chinese users.

The first class action lawsuit, filed in September 2023, claimed that Temu failed to secure customers' personal and financial data.

As mentioned earlier, Temu sources their products directly from manufacturers in China, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs. They also operate on a low-profit margin model, which allows them to offer products at prices lower than most retailers.

Data Protection

Temu's use of 3D Secure (3DS) provides authentication for credit card transactions and involves customer identity verification. Temu also adheres to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) for handling all credit card data.

Is Temu a security risk? ›

The lawsuit, which describes the application as 'dangerous malware', claims Temu can collect a lot of data from the devices it's installed on, and points to the risks of providing information to a Chinese company.

Is Temu Ethical? Temu has been accused of a multitude of unethical practices from forced labor, copyrighting images from other businesses, stealing designs, data leaks, violating privacy rules, tax evasion, the list goes on, and very much suggests Temu to be unethical.

Where Does Temu Ship from? Most of the products you see on Temu are directly shipped from Chinese suppliers and factories, while some can be shipped within the US.

Temu collects your personal information to provide and improve our services. Here's what we collect: Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you provide in relation to Temu Services. This includes but is not limited to your name, address, payment information, and purchase history.

According to the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, “American consumers should know that there is an extremely high risk that Temu's supply chains are contaminated with forced labor.”

No, Temu cannot “hack” your device, in the sense that it cannot download a virus on your device. However, I do recommend that you delete it because Temu is intentionally hiding functions that absorb user data and are used as spyware, and we don't know what they do with that data.

Temu (/ˈtiːmuː/ TEE-moo) is an online marketplace operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings. It offers heavily discounted consumer goods which are mostly shipped to consumers directly from China.

As Temu continues its aggressive push into the American market, the question remains: Are the low prices worth the high risks? With concerns over data privacy, security, and the company's ties to the CCP, it is clear Temu is not just another e-commerce platform.

The Third Party Code of Conduct mandates that anyone doing business with Temu must strictly comply with all regulatory standards and compliance requirements." "The use of forced, penal, or child labor is strictly prohibited.

Temu is able to offer products at such low prices due to a few reasons. Firstly, they source their products directly from manufacturers in China, cutting out the middleman and reducing costs. Secondly, they do not spend money on branding or marketing, as their products are unbranded.