Today, October 24, 2025, the European Commission concluded the public consultation on the draft Digital Fairness Act (DFA), which aims to adapt consumer law to the challenges of the digital world. The proposal seeks to strengthen consumer protection—particularly for minors—in the digital environment and to ensure fair competition for businesses operating within the European Union’s single market.
The Need for Regulation
According to the European Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check, consumers lose at least €7.9 billion annually due to unfair online practices. The assessment also identified existing regulatory gaps, a lack of legal clarity, and difficulties in enforcing the rules. The rapid growth of e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and influencer activities creates new risks that call for a legislative response.
According to the proposal, consumers are too often exposed to practices such as deceptive or manipulative interface design (dark patterns), addictive features, unfair personalization practices exploiting consumer vulnerabilities, misleading influencer marketing, and difficulties in managing digital contracts.
Scope of the Consultations
The scope of the consultations covered a range of problem areas, including manipulative user interface design (so-called dark patterns), addictive features in digital apps and services (e.g., autoplay, infinite scroll), controversial mechanisms in digital games (loot boxes, microtransactions), personalization of ads and prices based on personal data, hidden influencer marketing, unfair pricing practices (drip pricing, dynamic pricing), difficulties related to digital contracts (e.g., automatic subscription renewals), as well as proposals for regulatory simplifications for businesses.
According to the proposal, addictive design features in digital products are those that cause consumers to spend more time and money online than intended, such as infinite scrolling, disappearing content, autoplay, inactivity penalties, or recommendation algorithms that increase engagement. Consumers should also have easy functionality (e.g., a cancellation link or button) on the seller’s interface to exercise their right to cancel an online contract. Furthermore, sellers are expected to ensure “fairness by design”, meaning they must take technical and organizational measures to incorporate consumer protection at every stage of the product or service design.
Challenges and Weak Points of the DFA Proposal
Despite its ambitious goals, the Digital Fairness Act proposal faces significant challenges, which are particularly worth noting:
- Lack of a unified definition of “dark patterns” – different EU legal acts (DSA, UCPD, AI Act) use varying descriptions of these practices, leading to interpretative ambiguities and difficulties in enforcement.
- Regulatory fragmentation – many rules on unfair digital practices are spread across different legal acts (DSA, DMA, AI Act, CRD, UCPD), resulting in inconsistencies and the risk of ineffective enforcement.
- Excessive reliance on case-by-case assessment – instead of clear prohibitions, many regulations require individual evaluation, which may lead to discrepancies in the application of the law.
- Risk of stifling innovation – representatives of the digital industry warn that overly broad bans could hinder the use of legal persuasive techniques and slow the development of innovative solutions.
- Assumption of consumer rationality – current EU consumer law assumes that consumers make rational decisions, which does not account for the influence of manipulative design techniques on their behavior.
The Importance of Participation in the Consultations
Participating in public consultations always provides an opportunity to influence the shape of future EU legislation, raise specific issues and propose solutions, protect consumer interests, and ensure a level playing field for fair businesses. The consultations were open for 12 weeks and available in all official languages of the European Union.
In the consultations, various organizations emphasized the need to protect minors from manipulative advertising practices, the necessity to distinguish between regulated products (e.g., dietary supplements) and unhealthy food or tobacco products, and supported a risk-based approach.
An important point raised was the need for clear labeling of influencer content as advertising, as well as labeling and restrictions for therapeutic claims, narratives about rapid weight loss, or body modification. There are also calls to introduce limits on direct appeals to children and to label retouched/AI-generated body images, which should be restricted across all categories. It was also emphasized that personalized advertising using sensitive categories of personal data should be limited.
Who Should Prepare and How?
The DFA proposal covers a wide range of industries that operate online or use consumer data:
- E-commerce sector – online stores, sales platforms, price comparison websites.
- Technology sector – app developers, digital platforms, recommendation systems.
- Gaming and entertainment sector – game developers, mobile apps, streaming services.
- Advertising and marketing sector – advertising agencies, influencers, social media platforms.
- Dietary supplements and health products sector – particularly in the context of advertising targeted at minors.
Regardless of the future content of the act, it is already worthwhile to analyze current marketing and design practices for compliance with “digital fairness” principles. It is important to prepare for new informational and technical obligations, such as those related to personalization, user consents, and cancellation functionalities.
Early preparation will not only help avoid sanctions but also build a competitive advantage in the new regulatory environment.
The Role of AJ LAW in the Legislative Process
AJ LAW law firm actively monitors legislative changes at the European Union level, including the draft Digital Fairness Act. Our team supports clients in preparing positions for public consultations, analyzing regulatory risks, and adapting business operations to upcoming legal changes. We offer advisory services on compliance with the future DFA regulations as well as other legal acts related to the digital environment. For individual legal support, please contact us at: office@ajlaw.pl.