October 2025

 

The European Union (EU) is advancing toward a new initiative, the Digital Fairness Act, which is expected to address practices such as the so-called ‘dark patterns’ online, among others. Dark patterns are deceptive design elements used in user interfaces of apps and websites to trick users into sharing data they might not want to share or into making choices and purchases they might not otherwise make.     

 

In 2024, the EU published a Digital Fairness Fitness Check to gauge the prevalence of dark patterns in Europe and consumers’ views on them. Subsequently, in July 2025, the European Commission launched a three-month consultation on the main aspects of the forthcoming Digital Fairness Act.   

 

The issues the Digital Fairness Act seeks to tackle are not new: the EU has addressed dark patterns, along with various manipulative and deceptive practices, in its many digital and consumer protection regulations.

 

As the discussion on the Digital Fairness Act continues, it is important to note that businesses operating in Europe gather and use data on consumers’ online behaviour and preferences every day to be able to offer consumers a more personalised online experience.

 

Such legitimate efforts to provide users with interfaces, services, and offerings tailored to their preferences have been found by multiple studies to enhance European consumers’ sense of convenience and reduce their cognitive load and the complexity of online search.

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Personalisation is also widely catalogued to benefit businesses, including European small and medium enterprises (SMEs), helping them promote consumer trust, engagement, and repurchases, as well as expand the customer lifetime value. In a 2025 survey of across 13 European countries, 86 percent of SMEs attributed their revenue growth directly to personalised digital advertising.

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This paper describes the results of a new survey with 10,500 European consumers in 12 countries that was fielded in preparation for the European Commission’s public consultation on the Digital Fairness Act. The survey provides new data on the impacts of personalisation on European consumers, and takes stock of European consumers’ understanding of, and level of comfort with, businesses using consumers’ data to create personalised experiences, as well as their perceptions of how common dark patterns are online.  

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The survey reveals that:

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• Over 70 percent of Europeans find personalised services valuable, especially in terms of saving time and improving customer experience.

    

• Over a third, or 35 percent, favour or strongly favour getting personalised services, even if it means that online services use their data, while 41 percent are indifferent; only 24 percent oppose or strongly oppose. 

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• Over 85 percent of consumers understand and accept the data tracking that underpins personalisation.

 

• In a common way to measure consumers’ welfare gains from digital services, the survey finds that 71 percent of European consumers would even be willing to pay more for personalised services, especially in streaming and marketplaces. This indicates that personalisation enhances Europeans’ welfare.

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The survey also reveals that deceptive practices are not sustainable business practices:

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• European consumers are quick to act against brands that deceive or manipulate, by stopping to purchase from them, recommend them, or visit their sites.

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• As many as 79 percent would be willing to pay a premium for online services that are transparent and fair.

 

• While 70 percent of Europeans report experiencing dark patterns in at least some digital industries such as travel booking or ride hailing, for over one-half, the presumed dark patterns were not seen as pervasive, but, rather, concentrated in a “few services” in a given industry.

 

A dashboard with some of the survey results can be found here.    

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