Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced the filing of a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Chinese-owned online retailer Temu. Griffin filed the suit against Temu’s parent company, PDD Holdings, in Cleburne County Circuit Court. Griffin did so under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA), the Arkansas Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and also for what is termed “unjust enrichment.”
In the AG’s 51-page complaint, it demands a trial by jury, and that the state of Arkansas be given $10,000 for every violation spelled out in the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. PDD Holdings originated in Shanghai but recently moved its corporate headquarters to Dublin, Ireland.
![Griffin’s lawsuit states that they are seeking injunctions [preliminary and permanent] to stop PDD Holdings from “acquiring, maintaining and utilizing information from Arkansas residents.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/86f0d7e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1536x1023+0+0/resize/840x560!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5f%2F99%2F0c6fab9646beab6b1d1aef76aa5b%2Ftemu-tim-griffin-at-podium.png)
Even before a trial, Griffin’s lawsuit states that they are seeking injunctions [preliminary and permanent] to stop PDD Holdings from “acquiring, maintaining and utilizing information from Arkansas residents.” The legal complaint states that Temu’s app has malware that is targeting user data “far beyond normal consumer data.” And it further states the company has access to a users’ “entire device,” their location, and their fingerprint.
During a news conference on Tuesday at Griffin’s office in downtown Little Rock, the attorney general cited the example of an animated Super Bowl ad as a tactic to attract young people to the online marketplace. Griffin says Temu can sell their goods at heavily discounted prices because that’s only a deceptive device to bring in new customers. He says it’s all in an effort to collect customers’ data, and then sell that information to third parties. In a news release posted on the website of the Arkansas Attorney General, Griffin is quoted as stating, “Temu is not an online marketplace like Amazon or Walmart. It is a data-theft business that sells goods online as a means to an end.”
Griffin says this is not the first time Temu’s tactics have been under scrutiny, pointing to Apple’s [temporary] suspension of Temu from its digital app store, until July 2023. It even ended the year as the most-downloaded iPhone app in the U.S.
In March 2023, Google announced it had suspended Pinduoduo, a sister platform to Temu, from its play store after finding malware in versions of the app. As of now the Pinduoduo app has not returned to Google Play.
