Consultation response
Civil society is calling for an ambitious Digital Fairness Act to deliver meaningful consumer protection for people of all ages in the digital environment.
The importance of protecting consumers in the digital environment
Digital technologies are essential to daily life. At the same time, the online environment has enabled the proliferation of commercial practices that not only violate fundamental rights, but also undermine consumer autonomy, cause tangible financial, mental and physical harm, fuel overconsumption and distort competition.
Far from isolated, these practices have become part of business models built on deceiving individuals and manipulating their choices online.
Existing EU laws aren’t enough
The EU has adopted important legislation to better protect people online, including the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act and the AI Act. However, these laws are limited in scope and do not fully address the range of unfair and harmful practices used online across sectors.
EU consumer law that does apply across sectors, in particular the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, was adopted over 20 years ago. As a result, it does not adequately cover the unfair commercial practices people face online today.
Civil society recommendations for digital consumer protection
Against this backdrop, Finance Watch, alongside BEUC (The European Consumer Organisation), numerous civil society organisations, movements and individuals, are calling upon the European Commission to use the upcoming Digital Fairness Act to update EU consumer law to more effectively protect people in the digital realm.
In particular, those behind the joint letter call for stronger protection against:
- deliberate design tactics, known as dark patterns, that trick individuals into making choices that may not be in their best interest
- unfair personalisation, or tailored experiences that nudge consumers towards certain choices;
- addictive user interface design;
- problematic influencer marketing.
Read the joint statement
Read the joint statement to learn more about the concerns raised by civil society and the measures needed to ensure a fairer digital environment in Europe.
