U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) led her colleagues on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee in seeking information from 17 online marketplaces, including Meta, Amazon, and Walmart, about their efforts to end the sale of dangerous products on their platforms.
The committee is calling for information from leaders of the online marketplaces after the companies ignored requests from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to take down recalled products, including some related to infant deaths.
“The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is tasked with keeping the public safe from consumer products that pose an unreasonable risk of injury or death. In addition to its own work, the CPSC relies on online marketplaces, like Meta, to keep consumers safe by preventing the posting for sale of products that are known to be dangerous,” Committee Chair McMorris Rodgers and a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Aug. 17.
“It is our understanding that Meta has been falling short on this mission,” said the letter, which was also signed by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), committee ranking member.
According to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, CPSC has formally issued about one thousand take down requests a month for products that pose a danger to consumers and that were recalled. The letter stated, for example, that the products include the Fisher Price Rock ‘n Play, an inclined infant sleeper associated with approximately 100 infant deaths and recalled in 2019.
The committee members asked the companies to provide information on what systems they have in place to ensure recalled products that the CPSC has determined pose a serious risk of injury and potential death are not able to be posted on the marketplace. They also asked if the companies have a compliance staff dedicated to consumer product safety issues, and what actions are taken to monitor CPSC recalls.
“Meta’s failure to prevent recalled products from being posted for sale on its platform has resulted in your users and their children being placed at risk of purchasing and using a product that CPSC has found to pose a serious risk of injury and potential death,” the lawmakers wrote.