7 October 2024, Brussels – DOT Europe welcomes the European Commission’s recently published REFIT report on EU Consumer Law and Digital Fairness. The report emphasises the need to address harmful practices, boosting consumer trust, and reducing legal uncertainty for businesses. However, it remains unclear whether adding more regulation is the right approach, especially since the report highlights the ineffective enforcement of existing rules as a key challenge.
Many of the emerging practices identified by the Commission, such as dark patterns, AI-driven chatbots, and addictive design in online environments can be tackled by the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the AI Act. However, overlapping regulations can cause legal uncertainty for both companies and enforcers. Calls for new rules, particularly the envisaged Digital Fairness Act, also appear premature when landmark regulations such as the DSA, DMA, and AI Act have barely begun to take effect.
At the report’s own admission “it is difficult to predict the extent to which the new digital rulebook can compensate for the absence of concrete and well-defined digital consumer rights in EU consumer law”. Moreover, there is a lack of case-law and general long-term data – also highlighted by the opinion of the EC’s regulatory scrutiny board. “We cannot yet accurately assess effectiveness of the current rulebook. Against this backdrop, considering new rules risks unnecessarily stifling the digital economy in Europe at a time when the renewed focus should be on competitiveness,” says Constantin Gissler, Director General of DOT Europe.
Moving forward: fully explore the existing framework
It is notable that, out of the five areas for improvement and further study identified in the report, four are legal uncertainty, consistent application, enforcement and simplification. Rather than adding to the regulatory complexity a more strategic approach would involve streamlining the current regulatory framework, sufficiently equipping national enforcement bodies and ensuring better coordination between them to deliver consistent consumer protection across Member States. This bound to deliver faster, more effecitve results than new laws.
