The European Commission has published a consumer protection law package that, if adopted, would reshape EU consumer protection law. At the heart of the package is the EU Digital Fairness Act (DFA). Published on 11 November 2026, the DFA is a proposed EU Regulation that would repeal and replace the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and apply directly across all EU Member States. A parallel proposal to overhaul the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation would grant the European Commission direct investigation and enforcement powers for widespread cross-border infringements within the EU. This would include the power to fine traders up to 6% of worldwide annual turnover.
The third limb of the package is the proposal to simplify the Consumer Rights Directive. This would reduce the level of mandatory pre-contractual information traders are required to give to consumers and introduce a new 30-day withdrawal right for video and audio content subscriptions.
Overview of the Digital Fairness Act proposal
Some key elements of the DFA proposal include:
- Unfair commercial practices: repeal the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (implemented in Ireland by the Consumer Protection Act 2007) which has governed business-to-consumer commercial practices for two decades. In its place, the DFA would implement similar provisions on unfair commercial practices but these would take the form of an EU Regulation, rather than a Directive. This would mean that these rules would apply directly across the EU Member States without the need for implementation in individual Member States. In addition, the list of unfair commercial practices that are prohibited in all cases would be expanded.
- Dark patterns: introduce a prohibition on online interfaces that distort consumer behaviour, with certain practices blacklisted, meaning they would be prohibited in all cases.
- Addictive features: require traders whose products encourage compulsive or excessive use to give consumers the ability to disable addictive features, such as autoplay or features rewarding continuing engagement. These changes may require significant development work on traders’ online interfaces. Under the current draft, the Commission may update the list of features that consumers must be able to disable.
- Agentic AI contracting: introduce new detailed and prescriptive rules for agentic AI contracting, including giving consumers the ability to choose to confirm contracts that an agentic AI tool enters into on their behalf and requiring disclosure of any payments or conflicts of interest.
- Lootboxes: prohibit pay-to-progress and pay-to-win mechanisms and paid-for variable reward systems for minors in online gaming. This would apply where a trader’s products are directed at minors or the trader knows with reasonable certainty that minors use them. The DFA would also introduce mandatory transparency requirements for paid-for variable reward systems, such as loot boxes and mystery boxes, and require a tool allowing consumers to disable them.
- Purchases with in-game virtual currency: require that an estimated real money (fiat) value of virtual items is provided where these are offered for sale in exchange for in-game virtual currency.
- Contract renewal reminders: require traders to send reminders to consumers at certain intervals before a contract auto-renews to allow consumers to terminate.
- Free trials converting into a paid subscription: require traders to remind consumers towards the end of the free trial and to require consumers to expressly agree to the conversion into a paid subscription.
- Influencers: introduce prescriptive requirements for influencers to label their content. Brands would also be required to ensure that influencers comply with these labelling requirements, whether through contractual terms or other appropriate means.
- Personalised pricing: restrictions on harmful personalised pricing based on profiling for minors and vulnerable consumers.
- Personalised advertising: prohibit profiling-based advertising where the trader is aware with reasonable certainty that the consumer is a minor or profiling-based advertising using special categories of data.
Next steps
The DFA will now progress through the EU legislative process. The current proposal suggests that there will be a 12-month lead-in time from entry into force before it would apply. Given that the proposal is still at an early stage, the content and timing may change. However, because of the significant changes proposed, businesses should start considering the implications of the DFA proposal for their business models.
For more information, contact a member of our Data & Technology team.
The content of this article is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal or other advice.