What is the Digital Fairness Act?

The Digital Fairness Act is, as of August 2026, an initiative announced by the European Commission, not a law in force or a published legislative text. It appears in the Commission's 2026 work programme under the priority «Protecting our democracy, upholding our values», with an expected timeline for the fourth quarter of 2026.

According to the European Parliament's legislative calendar, the initiative aims to address problems consumers encounter online: dark patterns that push people toward unwanted decisions, marketing paid for by influencers without sufficient transparency, addictive design of digital products, and unfair personalisation practices, especially when they exploit consumer vulnerabilities for commercial purposes.

The name «Digital Fairness Act» is the one used by the Commission in its work programme and the one the European Parliament carries in its legislative calendar. There is no fixed official translation of the name yet, so this article keeps the original English name.

It should not be confused with rules already in force such as the GDPR, the Digital Services Act (DSA) or the Digital Markets Act (DMA). The Digital Fairness Act is framed as an additional layer specifically focused on protecting consumers from design and marketing practices, an area those earlier rules cover only partially. The GDPR, the DSA and the DMA are already binding across the whole European Union; the Digital Fairness Act, by contrast, hasn't even reached the formal proposal stage yet.

Because no legal text exists yet, there are no specific articles or obligations to describe. What does exist is a process: the European Commission opened a public consultation on the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act that ran until 24 October 2025, with participation from consumer organisations, businesses and platforms. Responses showed opposing views: consumer organisations called for stricter rules, while platforms such as TikTok argued that further regulatory intervention is largely unnecessary. The consultation was structured into separate thematic blocks, including dark patterns, influencer advertising, addictive design and personalisation, which explains why the four areas cited in this article recur across the initiative's official summaries.

The European Parliament had already pushed in this direction before the consultation: a December 2023 resolution on the addictive design of online services called on the Commission to propose legislation against addictive design and to close regulatory gaps on issues such as dark patterns.

The next expected step, according to the Commission's work programme, is a formal legislative proposal in the fourth quarter of 2026. From there, the text would need to go through the European Union's ordinary legislative procedure: negotiation between the European Parliament and the Council, with possible substantial changes from the consultation's initial approach. The European Parliament's own legislative calendar warns that the final content may differ from the consultation's approach, so any list of concrete obligations circulating today should be read as a working hypothesis, not as the norm's final content. Until that process concludes, any claim about concrete obligations under this law is, by definition, premature.

The European Parliament maintains this entry within its public Legislative Train Schedule tool, which tracks the status of every ongoing EU legislative initiative, not just the Digital Fairness Act. That is the most reliable way to follow the file's progress, more reliable than press articles that sometimes get ahead of unconfirmed content.

Even though there are no legal obligations to meet yet, the Digital Fairness Act matters for any business that uses persuasive design patterns, works with influencers, or personalises the user experience, because it signals the direction European regulation of digital consumption is heading. The four areas the consultation flags, dark patterns, influencer marketing, addictive design and unfair personalisation, overlap with common practices in e-commerce, subscriptions and online advertising.

Businesses already complying with the GDPR and the European Commission's guidelines on dark patterns start with an advantage, because much of the planned approach rests on similar principles: transparency, informed consent and the absence of manipulation in interface design. Businesses that rely heavily on artificial urgency techniques, such as fake counters, pre-ticked boxes or deliberately difficult cancellation, are the ones that should follow this process most closely.

It would not be correct, however, to act today as if the Digital Fairness Act already imposed obligations: doing so would mean anticipating a text that doesn't exist yet and that could change substantially during negotiations. Influencer-marketing agencies, e-commerce platforms with behaviour-based personalisation, and product teams designing subscription flows are the profiles with the most direct interest in following this initiative closely. This article will be revised once the Commission publishes the proposal's text, or if the timeline changes substantially from the quarter indicated here.

• Follow the European Parliament's official legislative calendar rather than secondary sources that might get ahead of unconfirmed deadlines or content.
• Review the European Commission's guidelines on dark patterns now, an already-active document that will likely shape the law's final approach.
• Audit your current website or app design for known dark patterns, such as pre-ticked boxes, hard-to-cancel flows or fake urgency, regardless of whether they're illegal yet.
• Document influencer agreements so the promotional nature of the content is clear to the user.
• Don't advertise compliance with the Digital Fairness Act: there is no text yet to comply with.
• Check back on this article after the fourth quarter of 2026, when the formal legislative proposal is expected.

• Presenting the Digital Fairness Act as an already-enforceable law in marketing materials or compliance audits.
• Confusing it with the GDPR, the DSA or the DMA, distinct rules already in force.
• Citing figures or entry-into-force dates without a source, when the Commission has only announced a quarter for the proposal, not an application date.
• Ignoring the already-active dark patterns guidelines while waiting for a new law to act.
• Treating the fourth quarter of 2026 as the law's entry-into-force date, when it is only the planned date for the legislative proposal, the first step of a process that still needs approval from Parliament and the Council.