Manipulative website design, disguised advertising and apps engineered to keep users scrolling are about to move from consumer complaint to legal target. The Digital Fairness Act, the Commission’s flagship plan to modernise online consumer protection, is entering its final drafting stretch ahead of a proposal expected in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Officials describe the file as a response to practices that existing rules struggle to reach. A 2022 Commission study found that 97 percent of the most popular EU websites and apps used at least one so-called dark pattern, the manipulative interface tricks that nudge people into spending more, sharing more data or staying subscribed. A later fitness check put the cost of such practices to consumers at a minimum of 7.9 billion euros a year.

The proposal is expected to target several distinct harms at once. It would tackle dark patterns and misleading interface design, curb the addictive mechanics built into games and social apps, regulate influencer marketing that blurs the line between opinion and paid promotion, and rein in unfair personalisation, including pricing that shifts based on what a platform infers about a shopper. Protection for minors runs through each of these strands.

Michael McGrath, the Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law, is set to present the initiative. He has argued that consumers deserve the same fairness online that they expect in a shop, and that rules written before the rise of algorithmic feeds and AI chatbots no longer match how people actually browse and buy.

Consumer groups want the law to bite hard. Advocacy organisations have pressed the Commission to name addictive design and manipulative defaults explicitly, rather than leaving enforcement to case-by-case interpretation. Their argument is that vague principles let large platforms redesign around the edges of the rules while keeping the underlying incentives intact.

Industry voices strike a more cautious note. Technology trade bodies warn that layering another rulebook on top of the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and existing consumer law risks duplication and confusion, and they argue that clearer enforcement of current rules might achieve much of the same goal. The Commission counters that it also intends to simplify some obligations, trimming information requirements in certain contracts to reduce the compliance burden on smaller firms.

The stakes reach beyond interface design. If the act treats addictive engagement and personalised pricing as regulated conduct, it would push European law into territory that platforms have long defended as ordinary product optimisation. The legislative journey is only beginning, and the text still faces the Parliament and member states once it lands. Background on the file is tracked in the Parliament’s Legislative Train Schedule, and the coming proposal will show how far the Commission is willing to go.