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Have your say - European Commission public consultation on the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act open until 24 October (ec.europa.eu)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by randomname@scribe.disroot.org to c/europe@feddit.org
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The Digital Fairness Act aims to strengthen protection and digital fairness for consumers, while ensuring a level playing field and simplifying rules for businesses in the EU. It will address specific challenges as well as harmful practices that consumers face online, such as deceptive or manipulative interface design, misleading marketing by social media influencers, addictive design of digital products and unfair personalisation practices, especially where consumer vulnerabilities are exploited for commercial purposes.

An example of a deceptive design is the "hard to cancel" (aka "Roach Motel") pattern where it is easy to sign up for a service or subscription, but very difficult to cancel it, as it is demonstrated in this brief example by the New York Times.

Just yesterday, on 25 September, Amazon settled a legal complaint with a 2.5 billion euro payment over similar illegal practices after 17 consumer rights organizations from Europe and the U.S. had filed a legal complaint in 2021 against Amazon. Although a first timid step, it is a major win for a transatlantic consumer protection system.

The complaint was based on the initial report by the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) arguing Amazon puts obstacles in the way of consumers who wish to unsubscribe from its Amazon Prime service.

To avoid such deceptive patterns and manipulative designs, the EU plans to introduce the Digital Fairness Act.

The call for public consultation on the Digital Fairness Act is open until 24 October 2025.

[Edit title for clarity.]

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