Digital Fairness Act: Another step forward for children's rights in the digital environment

Eurochild welcomes the proposed Digital Fairness Act as an important step towards protecting children from unfair commercial practices online. Our initial assessment highlights promising safeguards and areas requiring further scrutiny. 

On 11 November, the Commission presented a Consumer Package comprising proposals for a Digital Fairness Act, a Simplification Directive and a revision of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation. At a time when children are increasingly exposed to commercial content, manipulative design and engagement-driven business models online, the Digital Fairness Act represents an important step towards strengthening the EU’s digital rulebook, alongside the Digital Services Act, the proposed EU KIDS Act and the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. We welcome its recognition that children require specific protection as consumers and its contribution to a more coherent framework that safeguards children's rights in the digital environment. 

We particularly welcome the proposal's efforts to tackle dark patterns, addictive design, manipulative influencer marketing and other commercial practices that can exploit children's vulnerabilities and undermine their ability to make informed decisions. The introduction of a legal definition of influencer marketing is an overdue step in recognising the growing influence of the creator economy on children's lives. Clear requirements to identify commercial content and prohibitions on directly encouraging children to purchase products or persuade adults to do so are particularly welcome. These measures can help address commercial practices that too often blur the line between entertainment and advertising. 

We also welcome the proposed restrictions on profiling-based advertising targeting children and harmful personalised pricing, alongside the safeguards against exploitative monetisation in Articles 14-16. In particular, Article 14 requires the monetary value of virtual purchases to be displayed and paid virtual currencies to be disabled by default for children, with activation subject to parental or guardian approval. Article 15 prohibits paid variable reward systems for children, while Article 16 prohibits pay-to-win and pay-to-progress mechanics for children. These provisions represent important steps towards addressing commercial practices that exploit children’s developmental vulnerabilities. Article 17 also introduces tools to disable features encouraging compulsive or excessive use.  

While welcoming the proposed restrictions on exploitative commercial practices, we reiterate, as we did in our position on the EU KIDS Act, that protection should not depend on children or their parents having to identify and manage harmful features themselves. In this regard, the possibility of activating paid virtual currencies with parental or guardian approval deserves further scrutiny. While parents and guardians have an important role in supporting children online, their involvement should not be a substitute for strong obligations on companies to protect children by design.  

We will also examine whether the proposal, alongside the review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive and other relevant legislation, adequately addresses the commercial exploitation of children in the creator economy, including child influencers and the commercial dimensions of sharenting. While the proposed influencer-marketing framework covers payment and other valuable consideration, its effectiveness in addressing promotion involving gifts and other non-monetary benefits will require scrutiny. Eurochild members have increasingly highlighted the need for stronger and more consistent protection in this area, ensuring that children’s best interests take precedence over commercial interests. 

Stronger transparency and restrictions on profiling-based advertising should also fully address the overall commercial pressure children experience online. The Digital Fairness Act and the review of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive would need to help ensure effective limits on the volume, frequency and prominence of commercial content shown to children, including influencer marketing and embedded advertising.  

Ensuring consistency across the EU’s digital rulebook will be essential to avoid gaps in protection, particularly where similar commercial practices occur across social media, online games and other digital services.  

We particularly welcome the fact that children's views were included in the consultation process leading to the proposal, including through the EU Children's Participation Platform, which gathered the perspectives of nearly 4,800 children. Eurochild was pleased to help facilitate opportunities for children to contribute through our members. Children should continue to be involved in its implementation, monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that their experiences inform how protections are designed and enforced in practice. 

Children are entitled to digital environments that prioritise their rights, wellbeing and healthy development over business models that profit from their attention, engagement and vulnerabilities. The growing political momentum to strengthen children's protection online is a positive development. The priority now must be to translate this momentum into ambitious, effective and inclusive legislation that delivers meaningful protection for all children. 

For more information, please contact Francesca Pisanu, Eurochild Senior Policy Officer.