The European Commission proposed the Digital Fairness Act on 11 November 2026, a regulation that would set the exact wording online cancel buttons must carry and ban paid loot boxes for under-18s. It would replace the 2005 Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Nothing binds companies until 12 months after it enters into force.
What the Act Requires on Screen
The most concrete part of the proposal is a set of buttons with their labels written into law. Where a trader lets people sign up through an online interface, the trader must let them leave the same way, and the text specifies what the controls say.
| Function | Required label | When it must be available |
|---|---|---|
| Contract termination | “terminate the contract here” | Throughout the contract |
| Termination confirmation | “confirm the contract termination” | After the termination statement |
| Withdrawal (cooling-off) | “withdraw from contract here” | During the withdrawal period |
| Withdrawal confirmation | “confirm withdrawal” | After the withdrawal statement |
In each case the text allows “an unambiguous corresponding formulation” instead of the literal phrase, and requires the label to be easily legible, prominently displayed and easily accessible. The Commission’s proposal specifies that the confirmation control be labelled “only with the words ‘confirm the contract termination'” or an equivalent.
Two further duties sit alongside the buttons. Cancelling must not be more burdensome than signing up, and once a consumer confirms, the trader must send an acknowledgement of receipt on a durable medium, including its content and the date and time it was submitted, without undue delay.
Subscriptions pick up separate obligations. A free trial cannot convert into a paid contract unless the consumer is reminded and actively accepts; long and short-term contracts require a reminder before automatic renewal; and where a contract has rolled over into an open-ended one, the consumer may end it at any time on short notice. Regulators elsewhere have been pursuing the same conduct after the fact rather than by design: Amazon began paying Prime refunds in October 2026 following a United States case over its sign-up and cancellation flows.
When the Rules Would Actually Apply
No company has to change anything yet, and the proposal itself sets out why. The final article states that the regulation enters into force on the twentieth day after publication in the Official Journal and applies from 12 months after that.
Neither of those clocks has started. The European Parliament and the Council have to agree a text first, and no vote has been scheduled. Most coverage this week has used the present tense — the European Union “bans” or “outlaws” dark patterns — which overstates where the file is.
As of 14 November 2026, the Digital Fairness Act is a proposal. It has not been adopted, no date has been set for a Parliament or Council vote, and no cancel button anywhere is yet required to say anything in particular. The compliance analysis site Captain Compliance reads the combined timetable as pointing to 2028 or later; the Commission has published no target date of its own.
The European Union has a recent record of consumer rules that are announced long before they bite. Its EU Kids Act, which sets age limits at 13 and 15, is also not in force, and the Digital Fairness Act text repeatedly defers to it.
What Changes for Games and In-App Spending
Three articles target the way games and apps extract money, and the dividing line is age 18. The proposal defines a minor as any natural person under the age of 18.
- Article 14, virtual currencies: Where an item is priced in a paid-for in-game currency, its real-world monetary value must be shown prominently, clearly and comprehensibly, in the currency used to buy that virtual currency.
- Article 15, variable reward systems: Loot boxes and similar uncertainty-based rewards must disclose the probability of winning, cannot be offered to minors, and must be possible for any consumer to switch off.
- Article 16, pay-to-win and pay-to-progress: Mechanisms bought with real money or paid-for virtual currency cannot be made available to minors.
Where a product is aimed at minors, or the trader knows with reasonable certainty that minors use it, paid virtual currencies must be switched off by default and may only be enabled with a parent’s or guardian’s prior approval. Points collected through loyalty programmes do not count as virtual currency.
The proposal also carves out an exemption. The ban on offering variable reward systems to minors does not apply to providers of social networking services, video-sharing platforms, AI companions and general conversational chatbots, because the EU Kids Act already prohibits the same thing for them.
The Off Switch for Addictive Features
Adults get a switch rather than a ban, and this is the provision critics have focused on. Article 17 requires traders to let consumers who are not minors turn off features intended, or reasonably foreseeable, to encourage compulsive or excessive use.
The explanatory text names what it has in mind: automatic play of content and “infinite scrolling” on video-sharing platforms and social networks; games that penalise players for not engaging; and AI companions and general conversational chatbots that “may simulate interpersonal relations to incentivise prolonged use”. The Commission would be able to amend that list later through delegated acts.
The provision does not reach traders already covered by the EU Kids Act for practices concerning minors, nor providers of educational or scientific services.
A New Right to Reach a Human
Article 25 would give consumers the right to reach a human interlocutor in customer services, a measure that has drawn almost no attention this week. It sits in the same chapter as the cancellation rules, which is the point: an unleaveable subscription and an unanswerable chatbot are the same problem.
Article 26 adds that consumers should be able to set the main parameters of automated systems used in contracting, which covers AI shopping agents buying on a person’s behalf. Article 28 addresses unsolicited marketing messages, and Article 29 bars traders from behaviour that undermines compliance with any of it.
Who the Rules Would Cover
The change in legal instrument matters as much as the content. The Digital Fairness Act would repeal Directive 2005/29/EC and replace it with a regulation that is, in the text’s words, “binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States” — so it would not need national implementing laws, and member states would have less room to add their own variations.
Scope reaches beyond the bloc. Euronews reported that non-EU companies would have to appoint a legal representative in the European Union, which would put American and Asian platforms serving European consumers inside the regime.
Enforcement runs through a parallel revision of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation rather than through this text. Multiple outlets, including Euronews and the German technology publisher heise, report fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover for serious cross-border breaches, and new powers for the Commission to investigate and penalise directly. Heise reported, as a single source, that those direct powers would apply where a breach affects at least two-thirds of member states and two-thirds of their population. For scale, the Digital Markets Act allows up to 10% and the Digital Services Act up to 6%. The European Union has shown it will use such powers: Google was fined €403m over location data in September 2026.
What Consumer and Industry Groups Said
Reaction split three ways within a day, and not along the lines the Commission might have expected. Consumer bodies welcomed it, digital rights groups called it too weak, and industry called it duplicative.
Agustín Reyna, director general of the European consumer organisation BEUC, backed the proposal, saying “digital markets have for too long left consumers feeling disempowered and frustrated”. BEUC has pressed in particular for influencer advertising to be labelled.
European Digital Rights, the Brussels digital rights network known as EDRi, called it a significant step but objected to the approach on addictive design. Its senior policy adviser Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal said that “offering an opt-out should not automatically be considered sufficient” and that the drafting “leaves significant uncertainty and potentially lengthy case-by-case assessments”.
On the industry side, the German Startup Association said uniform rules were welcome but warned the obligations would weigh proportionally more on growth companies than on large corporations. The video games industry association said the draft would duplicate existing regulation, and CCIA, which represents large technology firms, argued it overlaps the Digital Services Act, the General Data Protection Regulation and existing consumer law.
What Is Still Undecided
The substance most likely to move in negotiation is already visible. Parliament has previously called for addictive design to be banned outright rather than made switchable, and the final text of Article 17 is the obvious battleground.
Personalised pricing is the other open question. Article 13 does not ban it; it prohibits profiling-based pricing only where it could cause harm to minors or vulnerable consumers, which is narrower than earlier leaked drafts suggested and narrower than some consumer groups want.
Several figures circulating this week come from single sources. Euronews cited the Commission’s impact assessment as estimating €88.4 billion in avoided consumer losses between 2025 and 2035, an annual benefit of €13.7 billion and recurring business costs of €678 million a year. Captain Compliance reported the dark pattern blacklist as ten entries at items 53 to 62 of Annex I, Part III; the annexes were published separately from the main proposal document.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is the Digital Fairness Act?
It is a European Commission proposal, published on 11 November 2026, for a regulation on business-to-consumer commercial practices. It would repeal the 2005 Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and add rules on dark patterns, subscriptions, addictive design, loot boxes, influencer marketing and personalised pricing.
When Does the Digital Fairness Act Come Into Force?
No date is set. The text says it would enter into force 20 days after publication in the Official Journal and apply 12 months after that, but it must first be agreed by the European Parliament and the Council, and no vote has been scheduled.
Does the Digital Fairness Act Ban Loot Boxes?
Not for adults. Paid loot boxes and similar variable reward systems could not be offered to anyone under 18, must disclose the odds of winning, and must be switchable off by any consumer who wants them gone.
Would It Apply to Companies Outside the European Union?
Yes, where they serve consumers in the European Union. Euronews reported that non-EU traders would also have to appoint a legal representative inside the bloc.
What Are the Penalties?
Fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover for serious cross-border infringements, set out in a parallel revision of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation rather than in the Digital Fairness Act itself.
