Backround

In response to growing concerns about the lack of fairness for consumers in the digital world, the 2020-2025 New Consumer Agenda announced that the Commission would investigate whether existing EU consumer laws were still providing a sufficiently high level of consumer protection in the digital environment.

To this end, the Commission undertook a Fitness Check of EU consumer law on digital fairness , published on 3 October 2024. The Fitness Check estimated the financial harm to consumers as a result to problems online to be at least EUR 7.9 billion per year. It further determined that there has been an increase in the complexity of applying consumer protection rules in the digital area in conjunction with other digital legislation (especially Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act), pointing to the need to take further action to ensure a consistency.

Following the results of this Fitness Check, President von der Leyen asked Commissioner McGrath to develop a Digital Fairness Act to tackle unethical techniques and commercial practices related to manipulative interface design (dark patterns), misleading marketing by social media influencers, addictive design of digital products and online profiling, especially where consumer vulnerabilities are exploited for commercial purposes.

Key Objectives of the Digital Fairness Act (DFA)

The Digital Fairness Act will focus on addressing the identified gaps and areas of legal uncertainty concerning consumer protection online, with respect to:

• Dark Patterns: Preventing traders from using dark patterns and other unfair techniques that pressure, deceive and manipulate consumers online (see Regulating dark patterns in the EU: Towards digital fairness by the European Parliament's Research Service)
• Addictive Design: Giving consumers greater control of their online experience by addressing addictive design features that lead consumers, particularly minors, to spend excessive time and money on online goods and services
• Video Games: Addressing problematic features of digital products such as in video games, in particular as concerns their impact on minors
• Personalisation Practices: Addressing problematic personalisation practices, including situations where consumer vulnerabilities are targeted for the purposes of personalised advertising and pricing
• Influencer Marketing: Preventing harmful practices by influencers (e.g. the lack of disclosure of commercial communications, the promotion of harmful products to their followers and clarifying the responsibilities of the companies that collaborate with them)
• Pricing Practices: Addressing unfair practices related to the price (e.g. “drip” pricing, “starting from” prices if the trader applies 3 dynamic pricing, percentage/value discounts that mislead the consumer as to the nature of the promotion)
• Unfair Digital Contracts: Addressing problems with digital contracts (e.g. difficult cancellations of subscriptions, auto-renewals or free trials converted into paid subscriptions, use of chatbots for customer service).

The Digital Fairness Act (DFA) will complement key EU digital laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the EU AI Act. While these regulations address digital risks on a broader scale, the DFA is focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) practices and is designed to close gaps in online consumer protection within the EU’s digital single market.

Expected Adoption Dates & Updates

It is expected that the Commission's impact assessment will be completed in Q2 2026, with a legislative proposal published in Q3-Q4 2026.  The Streamlex tracker below will be updated as the developments come - follow for updates.

Digital Fairness Act Tracker

Last updated: 10 August 2025