The dispute inside the Commission is whether Europe needs another broad digital rulebook while the DSA and DMA are still being tested.
Senior European Commission figures are divided over how far the proposed Digital Fairness Act should extend consumer-protection powers and whether it should add new fines and obligations for online businesses. The dispute, reported by the Financial Times, pits a more expansive consumer-policy approach against concern that Brussels may duplicate existing rules before they have been fully enforced.
The proposed law is expected to address practices such as manipulative interface design, subscription traps, personalised advertising, in-app spending and online features that may harm consumers, especially minors. Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath has argued for stronger direct enforcement powers. Digital chief Henna Virkkunen has warned against creating overlapping obligations that could make the EU rulebook harder to apply.
The timing is delicate. The Digital Services Act is still young. The Digital Markets Act is still being tested against the largest platforms. EU Today has covered a US funding plan targeting opposition to EU digital rules and the Commission’s supervision of X’s DSA transparency plan. Adding another law while those regimes remain in implementation risks both political and administrative overload.
The case for a Digital Fairness Act is clear. Consumer-protection rules often lag behind online business models. Users face dark patterns, difficult cancellation processes, personalised nudges, addictive design and opaque pricing. National authorities can act, but cross-border digital markets make enforcement slow and uneven.
The case against overreach is also serious. Small digital businesses may struggle with layered obligations designed for large platforms. If the new law creates additional reporting, risk assessments and fines without simplifying existing rules, compliance costs may rise without improving consumer outcomes. The EU already faces criticism that it regulates faster than it enforces.
The internal Commission disagreement therefore reflects a strategic question: should Brussels continue building sector-specific digital laws, or should it concentrate on making existing rules bite? The answer matters for companies, consumers and transatlantic relations.
For US technology companies, another EU digital rulebook would reinforce the view that Brussels is using regulation as industrial policy. For European consumer groups, a strong Digital Fairness Act may be seen as necessary because the DSA does not cover every manipulative commercial practice. Both arguments have weight.
The politics of child safety will push the proposal forward. France and other member states are moving on social-media age restrictions, while the Commission is considering EU-level measures for children and teenagers online. A fairness law could become the vehicle for rules on addictive design and youth protection.
Enforcement design will determine whether the act is useful. Direct Commission powers may be effective against large platforms but disproportionate for small companies. National authorities know local consumer markets but may lack capacity. A hybrid model could work only if responsibilities are clear.
The risk is legal clutter. If a subscription trap is covered by consumer law, the DSA, platform-specific guidance and the Digital Fairness Act, companies may litigate which regime applies. Consumers need remedies, not overlapping legal architecture. Regulators need clear triggers for action.
The Commission split should therefore be welcomed as a necessary debate rather than dismissed as institutional rivalry. Europe’s digital rules will be stronger if the next law fills a real gap. They will be weaker if it becomes another layer added because Brussels wants to show momentum.
The Digital Fairness Act may still become a central part of Europe’s consumer-protection agenda. To do so credibly, it must answer one question before it is proposed: what can it enforce that existing rules cannot?
The political difficulty is that “fairness” sounds simple but becomes complex at product level. A subscription reminder, a personalised price, a scarcity prompt and an in-game purchase can each be benign in one context and exploitative in another. Regulators therefore have to decide whether to ban specific practices, set broader duties of care or rely on enforcement after harm has occurred. Each model carries trade-offs. Specific bans are clearer but easier to route around; broad duties are flexible but create uncertainty. That is why the internal debate matters: the Commission is deciding whether the next phase of digital regulation should be prescriptive, principles-based, or some uneasy mixture of both.
