Digital Fairness Act Public Consultation

The European Commission’s public consultation on the future Digital Fairness Act (DFA) ran from 17 July to 24 October 2025.

This page summarises what actually happened during the consultation: who mobilised, why the deadline was extended, what was controversial about the questionnaire, and how the results will feed into the legislative proposal.

Consultation in a nutshell

The consultation and call for evidence were launched as part of the Commission’s work on a Digital Fairness Act, aimed at updating EU digital consumer law.

The DFA file is expected to address, among other things:

• manipulative interface design (“dark patterns”), including for minors

• addictive or attention-capturing design features

• opaque personalisation and profiling practices

• unfair or misleading influencer marketing and “social commerce”

• friction in online subscriptions, renewals and cancellations

The public consultation is now closed. This page focuses on the dynamics and content of that process rather than re-explaining the basic policy problem.

Timeline and deadline extension

The Have Your Say page set the feedback window from 17 July 2025 to an initial deadline of 9 October, later pushed back to 24 October 2025.

Key dates:

• 17 July 2025 – launch of the call for evidence and public consultation

• 24 October 2025 – final deadline after the Commission extended the response period

The extension matters politically: it gave extra time to both late-mobilising stakeholders (especially business associations) and to citizen campaigns that were already driving large volumes of submissions.

Who actually participated?

Stakeholder participation was unusually broad for a consumer-law fitness-check spin-off. In addition to the “usual suspects” (consumer organisations, digital-rights NGOs, platforms and business associations), the DFA consultation saw:

• A massive wave of citizen feedback, heavily influenced by the Stop Destroying Videogames campaign and broader gaming communities

• Large platforms and digital firms providing detailed legal and technical input

• National authorities and regulators, including consumer enforcement authorities and DPAs

Here is the full list of stakeholders who submitted feedback. We also have dedicated summaries for feedback submitted by: Apple, Google, TikTok, and Microsoft.

Gamer mobilisation and Stop Destroying Videogames

One of the defining features of this consultation was the level of mobilisation from gamers.

The Stop Destroying Videogames European Citizens’ Initiative, campaigning against the practice of rendering purchased games unplayable when servers are shut down, explicitly directed supporters to use the DFA consultation as a channel to demand stronger consumer rights for digital games.

As a result, thousands of individuals submitted near-template responses referencing SKG and game preservation. Many feedback entries call for obligations on publishers to keep games functional or to release server software when official support ends. The gaming angle now features prominently in media coverage of the DFA, sometimes overshadowing other issues like dark patterns or influencer marketing.

The questionnaire and “survey sore spots”

The design of the DFA questionnaire itself became a talking point.

An analysis published by EU Tech Loop argued that the consultation instrument was structurally biased, on the grounds that:

• many questions assumed agreement with the need for further regulation and gave more granular options to those in favour;

• respondents sceptical of new rules had fewer opportunities to articulate evidence-based objections;

• the length and complexity of the questionnaire risked under-representing less resourced stakeholders and ordinary citizens.

Legal form: directive, regulation, or package?

The legal form of the DFA is still not fixed, and the consultation played directly into that discussion.

At one point the Have Your Say page briefly labelled the initiative as a “Proposal for a Directive”, before this wording was removed and later described as a technical mistake.

Stakeholder and expert commentary now clusters around three possibilities:

1. A stand-alone regulation (“Digital Fairness Act”)

   • Favoured by some consumer and NGO voices seeking maximal harmonisation and direct effect across the EU.

2. A directive amending core consumer-law instruments

   • Several briefings suggest the Commission could opt for a directive that systematically amends the UCPD, CRD and UCTD, rather than creating a new horizontal act.

3. A mixed “package” approach

   • Combining targeted amendments with DFA-specific provisions in a single instrument.

The consultation questionnaire itself asks respondents to express preferences on legal form and on tools such as fairness-by-design obligations, black-listed practices, and reversals of the burden of proof.