EuroISPA Response to the Public Consultation on the Digital Fairness Act

EuroISPA shares the European Commission’s objective to protect and empower consumers. Nevertheless, we emphasise that the EU already has the world’s most comprehensive consumer protection framework, strengthened by recent major legislative updates, including the Omnibus Directive, DSA, DMA, Data Act, and AI Act.

Should the Commission remain committed to proposing a DFA, such an initiative should fully reflect the overall aim of ensuring a simple, competitive, and innovation-friendly legal framework, which benefits both consumers and businesses. It should also enable effective and consistent enforcement of existing laws, addressing specific gaps without duplicating existing legislation. Hence, before considering any new rules, the Commission should conduct comprehensive impact assessments of existing legislation and its implementation.

Only where genuine gaps are demonstrated should evidence-based, targeted, and technologically neutral measures be considered. Even then, the Commission should first assess whether the objectives can be achieved by amending existing instruments—such as the DSA—instead of adopting a new legislative act.

EuroISPA’s specific recommendations address:

• The relationship between regulators and businesses
• Dark patterns
• Addictive design
• Unfair personalisation practices
• Harmful practices by social media influencers
• Issues with digital contracts
• Simplification measures
• Horizontal issues (age assurance, fairness by design, burden of proof, definition of consumer).