Wish, backed by Google, had raised a priority question of constitutionality around the power ” digital injunction of the DGCCRF, or the repression of fraud, after the forced delisting of the e-commerce site.
In November 2021, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF) ordered the delisting of the Wish site from the Google, Qwant and Bing search engines, as well as the removal of the mobile application from Play Store and App Store stores. This decision, taken after conducting two investigations in 2018 and 2020, was a first in Europe. But it was challenged by Wish, and to a lesser extent by Google. The Constitutional Council ruled in favor of the DGCCRF. But let’s see what his legal reasoning was.
Wish raised a priority question of constitutionality, supported by Google
After the decision issued by the repression of fraud, the Californian company Context Logic, which operates the Wish brand, had seized the administrative court of Paris. Wanting to go quickly, she had filed an interim appeal but was dismissed by the administrative judge, before appealing to the Council of State, in May 2022.
It was in the context of this litigation that Wish raised a priority question of constitutionality concerning the power attributed to the DGCCRF to order an online platform to delist content deemed to be illegal, based on the principles of freedom of expression and freedom of enterprise.
Remember that the priority question of constitutionality (QPC) is a right recognized since 2010 for any citizen or company to affirm, before the Council of State for example, that a legislative provision infringes the rights and freedoms that the Constitution guarantees. It turns out that Wish’s request here was backed by… Google.
The digital injunction power of the DGCCRF confirmed and even reinforced
On October 21, 2022, the Constitutional Council validated the compliance with the Constitution of the legislative elements on which the DGCCRF had been able to rely, referring in particular to the general interest objective pursued. Incidentally, the Elders confirmed the powers attributed by Parliament to the repression of fraud, even when the actors concerned operate from abroad.
The latter can indeed order, since the DDADUE law of December 3, 2020, the dereferencing, the restriction of access to a site or an application, but also the blocking of a domain name and the display of a message of warning when it notices the presence of illegal content online.
The Wish platform is only dereferenced: it remains accessible from the address bar of browsers. ” This decision is important: this digital injunction power can be used whenever we deem it necessary to put an end to practices likely to harm consumers. », warns Olivia Grégoire today, Minister Delegate for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, Trade, Crafts and Tourism. The case now seems closed.
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