Digital Fairness Act

The Digital Fairness Act [1] is an upcoming legislative proposal from the European Union by Michael McGrath, Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and Rule of Law. The Commission acknowledged the potential need for a Digital Fairness Act in their final report on the Digital Fairness Fitness Check published on October 3rd 2024. The European Parliament called for the need for additional consumer protections regarding addictive design on digital platforms in their Resolution on Addictive Design adopted on December 12th 2023. These two key documents (Commission’s report on Digital fairness, and Parliament’s resolution on Addictive design) are expected to be used as the basis for the Digital Fairness Act.

Objective of the proposal

The main objective of this proposal is to improve consumer protection in the online environment focusing on:

• preventing traders from using dark patterns and other unfair techniques that pressure, deceive and manipulate consumers online;
• 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;
• addressing problematic features of digital products such as in video games, in particular as concerns their impact on minors;
• addressing problematic personalization practices, including situations where consumer vulnerabilities are targeted for the purposes of personalized advertising and pricing;
• 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);
• addressing unfair practices related to the price (e.g. “drip” pricing, “starting from” prices if the trader applies dynamic pricing, percentage/value discounts that mislead the consumer as to the nature of the promotion);
• 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).

Timeline

The DFA is being worked on since the end of 2020 and is the current the Consumer Agenda flagship targeting to publish the proposal in the first half of 2026 .[2]

The commission opened a public consultation[3] to take place between 17 July 2025 and 24 October 2025