On 17 July 2025, the European Commission launched a public consultation aimed at adopting legislation on digital fairness (the Digital Fairness Act). Its purpose is to tackle problematic practices such as the design of deceptive interfaces (“dark patterns”), misleading influencer marketing, the creation of addictive digital products, and unfair personalisation practices, such as online profiling — particularly when consumer vulnerabilities are exploited for digital purposes. The initiative also aims to ensure a level playing field for online traders, facilitate enforcement, and introduce potential simplifications. The public consultation will remain open until October 2025, with the proposal scheduled for presentation in the third quarter of 2026.

This initiative forms part of the Commission’s 2025 work programme, which recognises the fundamental role of consumers in the social market economy.

In response to growing concerns about a lack of fairness for consumers in the digital environment, the Commission committed in its 2020–2025 New Consumer Agenda to assess whether the “EU digital acquis” implemented over the past five years — including the Digital Services Regulation, the Digital Markets Regulation, the Artificial Intelligence Regulation, the Data Regulation and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive — continues to provide a sufficiently high level of protection.

According to the Fitness Check on legislation published on 3 October 2024, EU legal acts on digital fairness remain relevant and necessary to ensure a high level of protection and the effective functioning of the Digital Single Market. However, they are not fully adapted to certain harmful practices prevalent in the digital environment, such as unfairness disproportionately affecting vulnerable consumers (e.g. minors), which can lead to inappropriate choices and result in financial losses, wasted time, and negative health effects, among other harms.

The Fitness Check also identified a lack of clarity in the regulatory framework and market fragmentation, leading to higher costs for businesses, barriers to cross-border trade, and risks of unfair competition.

The Commission is working on measures to ensure the protection of online consumers, in particular to:

• Prevent traders from using dark patterns and other unfair techniques that mislead or manipulate consumers.

• Give consumers greater control over their online experience, identifying design features that create dependencies — for example, those encouraging minors to spend excessive time and money on digital goods and services.

• Address problematic personalisation practices, including cases where consumer vulnerabilities are targeted for personalised advertising and price-setting.

• Prevent harmful practices by influencers, including the promotion of harmful products to their followers, and ensure disclosure of commercial communications as well as accountability of businesses working with them.

• Tackle unfair pricing practices (e.g. drip pricing, “from” pricing when dynamic pricing is applied, or percentage/value discounts that mislead consumers about the nature of the promotion).

• Address problems with digital contracts (e.g. difficulties in cancelling subscriptions, automatic renewals, free trials converted into paid subscriptions, or the use of chatbots for customer support).

This legislative initiative will also provide an opportunity for streamlining and simplification, particularly regarding certain consumer information requirements in repeated transactions with the same trader (e.g. in-app purchases) and the consumer’s right of withdrawal in respect of certain subscription services.

Our team is available should you require further information.