Towards the Digital Fairness Act: How to Better Protect People from Harmful Commercial Practices Online

  • Panel
  • Maritime
  • Wednesday 21.05 — 11:50 - 13:05

Organising Institution

BEUC - The European Consumer Organisation

Europe

BEUC is the Brussels-based umbrella group for 44 consumer organisations from 31 countries. Our main role is to represent them to the EU institutions and defend the interests of European consumers. Our work involves making sure the EU takes policy decisions that improve the lives of consumers. This covers a range of topics including competition, consumer rights, digital rights, enforcement, financial services, health, sustainability and trade policy. We were founded in 1962 by consumer groups from six European countries. Nowadays, our members are from 26 EU Member States as well as the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and North Macedonia.
  • Business 2
  • Policy 4
Following the Fitness Check of EU consumer law completed in autumn 2024, the European Commission has announced that it will develop a Digital Fairness Act (DFA) to improve the protection of consumers online. The DFA is expected to address dark patterns, addictive design, influencer marketing, unfair data-driven personalisation and other harmful practices. In the Fitness Check report, the Commission points out that existing rules, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), are not enough to ensure fairness online, and that EU consumer law therefore needs to be updated. The Commission also found that more clarity is needed on how EU consumer law applies to unfair commercial practices online, and that enforcement of EU consumer law is insufficient. Against this background the panel will debate how the EU could improve digital fairness.

Questions to be answered

  1. What unfair commercial practices are people facing online?
  2. Why are existing EU rules not sufficient to tackle these practices?
  3. How could the DFA remedy the shortcomings of existing EU law?
  4. How could enforcement be improved to ensure that EU law is truly effective?

Moderator

Urs Buscke

BEUC - The European Consumer Organisation - Europe

Urs Buscke is a Senior Legal Officer at BEUC – The European Consumer Organisation. Urs is leading BEUC’s work on the upcoming Digital Fairness Act. Before joining BEUC in 2022, he worked as Attaché at the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU. Urs holds a doctorate in EU law from the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he also worked as research assistant at the EU law department after graduation.

Speaker

Maria-Myrto Kanellopoulou

European Commission - Europe

Maria-Myrto Kanellopoulou is the Head of Unit for Consumer Law at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers. Myrto joined the European Commission in 2009, and since then she has been a member of the cabinets of the European Commission Vice-President for promoting our European way of life (2019-2024), the Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development (2014-2019), and for Consumer Policy (2013-2014). Her earlier experience includes positions at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Consumers, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU.

Speaker

Simona De Heer

European Parliament - Europe

Simona de Heer is Tech Policy Advisor for GroenLinks-PvdA MEP Kim van Sparrentak. In this capacity she has worked on various digital legislation, such as the AI Act and the European Parliament's report on Addictive Design on online services. She is currently working on the Democracy Shield report. She has a background in law and is currently also Head of Policy for the Dutch delegation of the Greens (GroenLinks-PvdA).

Speaker

Ilya Bruggeman

EuroCommerce - Europe

Ilya Bruggeman is the Director for Digital, Single Market & Consumer Policy at EuroCommerce, the European voice for retail and wholesale. Since joining EuroCommerce in 2013, Ilya has been instrumental in leading the organization's activities across a broad range of policy issues, including single market, digital transformation, payments, and consumer protection. Prior to his role at EuroCommerce, he worked for the Dutch Retail Association and as a public affairs consultant

Speaker

Frithjof Michaelsen

UFC Que Choisir - France

Frithjof is EU Policy Officer at UFC-Que Choisir, the French Federation of Consumer Organisations, where he previously led the organisation’s digital consumer policy initiatives. Before joining UFC-Que Choisir, he worked as a public policy consultant in Brussels. He has authored numerous reports and studies on digital consumer services, including publications of the EU institutions, covering topics such as dark patterns, online marketplaces, influencer marketing, monetisation in video games, and data protection.