Tallinn: Every European who has struggled to cancel an online subscription or watched a countdown timer push them into a purchase has met the tricks the European Commission now wants to outlaw. The coming digital fairness rules aim to make the online marketplace behave more like the physical one, where a shopper can walk away without a maze of dark buttons blocking the exit.
The Commission is preparing a Digital Fairness Act, expected as a formal proposal later in 2026, after a public consultation that drew sharp input from consumer groups and industry alike. Officials argue that existing consumer law predates the tricks that now shape online life, and that scattered national rules leave shoppers unevenly protected across the single market.
Regulators have three targets in their sights. Dark patterns, the design choices that nudge users toward decisions they would not otherwise make, top the list. The addictive design of apps, from infinite scroll to reward loops built to keep children glued to screens, sits close behind. Influencer marketing, where paid promotion often masquerades as personal enthusiasm, completes the trio.
Personalised pricing worries the Commission just as much. When an algorithm quietly charges one shopper more than another based on browsing history or device, the practice erodes the trust a functioning market depends on. The planned law would force firms to disclose such tailoring and, in some cases, forbid it outright.
Consumer advocates welcome the direction while warning against delay. They point out that the harms are already widespread, and that a proposal in late 2026 could take years to bite once member states and Parliament finish negotiating. Anyone can follow the file’s slow journey through the institutions on the Parliament’s legislative train.
Industry groups counter that Europe already imposes a dense web of digital obligations, and that a fresh act risks piling duplication onto the Digital Services Act and the recent overhaul of consumer rules. They urge the Commission to enforce what exists before writing more.
The Commission frames the effort differently. It insists that clearer, harmonised rules will help honest traders as much as shoppers, sparing them the cost of navigating twenty-seven separate rulebooks. A single standard, the argument runs, rewards the businesses that already treat customers fairly and punishes the ones that profit from confusion.
Whether the final text matches the ambition remains an open question. Lobbying will intensify once the proposal lands, and the definition of an unfair design choice will prove hard to pin down in law. For now the Commission has signalled that the era of treating online manipulation as clever marketing is drawing to a close.
