Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that the state has filed a lawsuit against Temu and its parent company, PDD Holdings Inc., over allegations of data theft. The complaint claims that Temu, a Chinese online retailer, misleads customers about product quality and collects sensitive user information without consent. This includes GPS locations and lists of other apps installed on users’ phones.
Mayes expressed concern about Temu’s obligations under Chinese law to provide data to the government upon request. She also stated that the app is designed to avoid security reviews.
“It can detect everywhere you go, to a doctor’s office, to a public library, to a political event, to your friends’ houses,” Mayes said during a news conference. “So the scope of this invasion of privacy is enormous, and that’s why I consider it possibly the gravest violation of the Arizona Consumer Fraud Act that we have ever seen in Arizona.”
The attorney general added that Arizona aims to protect local businesses from intellectual property theft by Temu. She alleged that the company has copied brands such as the Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University.
Similar lawsuits have been filed in Kentucky, Nebraska, and Arkansas in recent years. At the federal level, there have been efforts to address concerns about China’s influence in technology and intellectual property sectors. Mayes called for more robust federal intervention for consumer protection.
She described the accusations against Temu as more serious than those previously made against TikTok.
A forensic review conducted by investigators in Arizona reportedly found code within Temu’s app identified by experts as malware or spyware. The review indicated this code could extract data from mobile devices while hiding these actions from users. Investigators also found significant portions of previously banned code from an earlier version of the platform embedded within the current app.
