Tech giants’ product safety bluster adds insult to injury
Sue Davies, Head of Consumer Rights Policy
| Which?
Countless Which? investigations have exposed dangerous or potentially lethal products being sold to UK consumers on online marketplaces. We are routinely told by these companies that safety is a priority, but the mountain of evidence we have accumulated makes it hard to take these claims seriously.
In 2014, Surrey Trading Standards sounded the alarm about killer child car seats that catastrophically failed in crash tests. In 2019, we found the same flimsy designs for sale on leading online marketplaces. Each platform responded to our investigation, insisting that child safety is of paramount importance. And yet, the same designs were found again in our follow up investigation in 2025 - more than a decade after they were first reported.
The car seats story encapsulates a pattern that we see time and again. We report dangerous items to these platforms and they remove the individual products while pledging that safety is a priority. However, their underlying business model remains unchanged, so their responses amount to little more than sticking plasters.
At the same time, these firms are investing in public relations and marketing initiatives, producing reports or signing voluntary commitments stressing their commitment to protecting customers. But it hasn’t become any harder for our investigators to find unsafe products.
In 2024 Amazon promoted the launch of an initiative working with experts to deliver baby safety education to consumers. A laudable project, for sure - but somewhat overshadowed by the continued appearance of potentially lethal baby products on its marketplace.
Which? found baby sleeping bags or sleep pillows that could smother a child for sale on Amazon and other marketplaces, including eBay and Etsy in 2025 and 2026, with Amazon one of the worst offenders in the most recent investigation. Offering parents a dedicated page for ‘safety tips’ is welcome - but taking real responsibility for the safety of products sold to new families would be true progress.
At a recent select committee session with safety experts from some of the biggest online marketplaces, MPs were able to turn up with examples of dangerous product listings they had found easily with an online search that very morning. Too often, parliamentarians’ concerns were met with the same stock answers and corporate soundbites we have been hearing for years.
What would it take for their assurances to be credible? For a start, online marketplaces need to adopt an effective proactive approach to blocking and removing dangerous products. Unsafe products should not be reaching consumers at all, but too often we find that action is only taken after a Which? investigation calls attention to unsafe items.
What’s more, the products that are taken down frequently reappear under different names or sellers. You can almost set your watch in the expectation that the same product will turn up again before long. Sometimes it’s only a matter of days. Our view is that the current approach does little more than provide online marketplaces with a paper-thin cover for failing to protect their customers.
It’s worth bearing in mind that online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are among the most technologically advanced companies in the world. At the same time, we’ve easily found unsafe products using tools that are widely available, such as reverse image searching to match product listings with government recalls. It doesn’t seem to add up that they have the technical knowhow to deliver parcels via drone but fail to apply even basic tools to identify dangerous products.
Platforms should also verify sellers properly before allowing listings to go live. They should systematically monitor official safety alerts and remove matching or highly similar products without waiting for another investigation to force their hand.
None of this is beyond the capabilities of companies that operate at global scale. The technology exists, the data exists, but what is missing is the willingness and, more importantly, the incentives for these businesses to treat safety with a seriousness that matches their claims. Lives will be at risk until online marketplaces are forced to make good on their rhetoric.
Even if some marketplaces were to clean up their act, there will always be new platforms that are under no obligation to follow suit. The market is changing faster than ever with new actors entering regularly, so there is no substitute for fundamental legal requirements backed up with strong incentivising penalties.
The Product Regulation and Metrology Act, introduced last year, was an important first step. Now the government must urgently use the new powers it has under the Act to update product safety legislation and impose a clear legal duty on online marketplaces for ensuring the safety of products sold through their third-party sellers, with tough enforcement for those that fall short.
