New EU law: “Digital Fairness Act” – The end of the grey area for influencers and brands

No more endless scrolling: What the new Digital Fairness Act really changes for users

In a world where likes, reach, and digital subscriptions drive a multi-billion-dollar economy, trust has become the most important—and most easily manipulated—currency. But the era of largely unregulated online activity is drawing to a close. With the planned "Digital Fairness Act," the European Commission is now launching a major offensive against unfair online practices. Whether it's hidden influencer advertising, so-called dark patterns that lure us into unwanted subscription traps, or endless scrolling that deliberately targets users' psyches: the EU wants to put a stop to this digital Wild West behavior and firmly anchor consumer protection in the architecture of the platforms.

That this is no longer abstract future territory is demonstrated by current real-world cases. The potentially ruinous fine imposed on influencer Hanadi Diab and the sensational fake illness scandal involving YouTuber Marvin Wildhage and "Doc Alina" mark a turning point for the entire creator economy. Brands, agencies, and content creators face a new reality of liability, where ignorance or negligence can quickly lead to legal and financial disaster. The following article examines why the existing system is outdated, what specific legal changes are coming our way, and how the digital value chain must reinvent itself from now on.

A law as a response to a system that has become obsolete

With the Digital Fairness Act, the European Commission is preparing a regulatory framework that intervenes more deeply in the architecture of the digital economy than most previous consumer protection initiatives. The draft is expected to be presented in the fourth quarter of 2026 and targets manipulative interface design, so-called dark patterns, unfair personalization, and misleading influencer marketing. The initiative is based on a fitness check of EU consumer law, which revealed that unfair online practices cost European consumers nearly eight billion euros annually. This figure alone explains why Brussels is now taking action, as it transforms a vague unease about manipulative online practices into a concrete economic metric. Commissioner Isabelle Pérignon confirmed during a hearing of the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection in January 2026 that more than 4,000 responses had been received during the consultation phase – evidence of the issue's urgency in the public eye. From an economic perspective, this is a market correction from above, because the market itself has not developed sufficient incentives over the years to effectively curb manipulation, addictive design and disguised advertising.

Why the EU Commission is intervening now and what exactly is planned

The Digital Fairness Act targets four key problem areas that often overlap in practice. These include manipulative user interfaces, where, for example, false scarcity warnings or pre-selected price options distort purchasing decisions; addictive design features such as endless scrolling or autoplaying content; personalized advertising that exploits consumer vulnerabilities; and opaque influencer marketing. Particularly strict rules are planned for minors, including the default deactivation of addictive features with the option of parental consent, as well as a general ban on personalized advertising, which would extend the existing regulations in the Digital Services Act to all retailers. Digital subscriptions are also a focus, as cancellations should be as easy as the initial subscription, coupled with a requirement to send reminders before automatic renewal. A first official draft law is expected in autumn 2026, with political negotiations between Parliament and the Council likely to drag on until 2027 or 2028, while binding national implementation is realistically not expected until 2029. This long timeframe is economically significant because it gives companies a head start that they can use strategically, provided they take the early warning signs seriously.

Influencer marketing as a particularly sensitive area of ​​regulation

Within the Digital Fairness Act, the Commission explicitly targets problematic practices of social media influencers, particularly hidden advertising and the promotion of potentially harmful products such as dietary supplements, cosmetic procedures, or the promotion of unrealistic body images. Legally speaking, influencer marketing is by no means a regulatory-free zone, as the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive obliges influencers acting as or on behalf of a trader to clearly disclose their commercial intentions. According to this interpretation, any form of compensation—be it payment, a discount, a commission from affiliate links, or even just an unsolicited product—constitutes a commercial intention that must be disclosed. It is also noteworthy that the responsibility does not lie solely with the advertiser, but explicitly also with the brands and clients who benefit from the advertising. This dual responsibility is the real core of the shift, which the Digital Fairness Act is likely to further intensify, as it breaks with the previously common business model whereby companies could effectively delegate the labeling obligation to content creators and absolve themselves of liability.

The Hanadi Diab case as a blueprint for the new liability reality

The case of Stuttgart-based influencer Hanadi Diab demonstrates how seriously regulatory authorities are now taking compliance. The Baden-Württemberg State Media Authority imposed a fine of €36,000 on her, which, together with processing fees and expenses, rose to €37,803.50, making it the highest penalty ever levied by this authority against an influencer. The fine stemmed from several paid collaborations published in Instagram Stories between May and July 2025. Some of the posts were not marked as advertising at all, while in others, the disclosures were barely visible due to small font sizes and unfavorable color choices. The authority considered it particularly serious that Diab had already been repeatedly warned about the legal requirements in 2020 and 2022. Therefore, the repeated violations, the large reach of her Instagram presence, and the economic value of the collaborations were all factored into the calculation of the fine. Diab itself contradicted this account, stating that it characterized every cooperation, but the fine became legally binding and could no longer prevent the insolvency proceedings, which were opened on July 3, 2026, before the Stuttgart District Court. Economically, this case marks a turning point because it shows that fines, previously often perceived as a minor risk, can now reach existential dimensions and thus fundamentally call into question the business model of pure reach monetization without proper compliance.

Trust as a scarce resource and the economics of credibility

The second case, which has preoccupied the industry since the end of July 2026, operates on a different level but touches upon the same core economic issue: the limited and easily depleted resource of trust. Berlin-based YouTuber Marvin Wildhage constructed an experiment in which he created a fictitious pharmaceutical company complete with a professional website, a fictional study director named Dr. Sofia Beatrice Gepetto, and a completely fabricated illness called post-viral nasal hypersensitivity. His aim was to test how carefully physicians and content creators handle paid collaboration requests. Medical influencer Alina Walbrun, known as Doc Alina (with around 300,000 followers), who posed as a licensed physician, accepted the offer and, in an Instagram story, not only described the fabricated symptoms but also added further complaints and claimed to be familiar with the condition from her medical studies, even though this condition simply does not exist. She reportedly received a fee of €3,800 for the collaboration, which she said she doubled and donated to Doctors Without Borders after the experiment became public. Walbrun publicly admitted that she had not sufficiently examined the definition of illness and had later presented it as if it were something she knew from her studies, for which she apologized to her community. Economically speaking, this case demonstrates that medical authority has long since become a tradable asset in the creator economy, the misuse of which can lead to massive reputational damage, even when no real product or company is involved.

When auditing obligations become a strategic necessity

Both cases point to a common structural problem that extends beyond the individuals involved: the systematic underinvestment in due diligence and review processes along the entire value chain of advertising contracts. In Diab's case, it was the technical and formal negligence in labeling despite repeated warnings from authorities; in Walbrun's, it was the lack of due diligence regarding a cooperation offer whose origin and substance were not sufficiently verified. From a business perspective, this suggests that the marginal costs of thoroughly reviewing cooperation requests are now significantly lower than the potential consequential costs arising from fines, reputational damage, and, in extreme cases, insolvency. The Digital Fairness Act further formalizes this logic by distributing responsibility more broadly among multiple actors simultaneously, thereby increasing the incentive to invest in compliance structures instead of silently passing the buck to the weakest link in the chain. For brands, this means specifically that they can no longer assume that by hiring an agency or creator they have completely outsourced their own liability, because the regulatory authorities and potentially the Digital Fairness Act itself are increasingly targeting the entire chain of those who profit economically.

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The role of platforms between infrastructure and shared responsibility

Another aspect often underestimated in the public debate concerns the responsibility of the platforms themselves. Online platforms used for advertising activities are subject to their own due diligence obligations and must provide third parties with specific and appropriate labeling tools within their user interface – an obligation already stipulated by the Audiovisual Media Services Directive. The Digital Fairness Act is likely to clarify these requirements and further standardize the technical design of the labeling functions, as a key problem in the Diab case was precisely the technically feasible but practically inadequate implementation of labeling through inconspicuous font size and color choices. Should platforms be required in the future to technically enforce minimum standards for the visibility of advertising labels, for example through automated contrast checks or minimum sizes, a significant portion of the current gray area would disappear. At the same time, this would create a new cost burden for the platform operators themselves, manifesting as development costs, moderation resources, and potential liability risks, which in turn could have repercussions for the fee structures of advertisers and creators.

Economic friction losses and the search for the right level of regulation

Critical voices from the business sector, such as the European digital association Digital Europe, point out that a comprehensive legal framework already exists for many of the issues addressed, which primarily requires more consistent enforcement rather than new legislation. From this perspective, the real problem lies not in regulatory gaps, but in inconsistent enforcement across member states. This is indeed one of the central points of criticism within the EU institutions themselves, as fragmented national supervisory practices can lead to distortions of competition. While the Council of the European Union explicitly emphasizes the need to avoid undue new bureaucracy in its conclusions, it simultaneously supports the Commission's intention to present a standalone Digital Fairness Act. This simultaneous endorsement and caution demonstrates that the political balancing act between consumer protection and innovation capacity is far from over. From an economic perspective, the real risk lies less in the regulation itself than in its potential vagueness, because if terms like addictive design or unfair personalization are not clearly defined, considerable legal uncertainties threaten, especially for smaller companies and individual creators who often cannot afford professional legal advice to the same extent as large platform corporations.

Germany as a regulatory pre-laboratory with its own practice of fines

Germany already has a comparatively comprehensive set of national regulations that can serve as a testing ground for stricter European rules. According to the Interstate Media Treaty, advertising in telemedia must be clearly identifiable and distinctly separated from other content, with violations punishable as administrative offenses and subject to fines of up to €500,000. As early as 2022, the Stuttgart District Court upheld the first conviction nationwide based on this principle, imposing a fine of €9,500 and clarifying that it is not sufficient for the commercial nature of a post to be inferred only from the circumstances, but that it must be immediately and unambiguously recognizable. In addition, since the 2022 amendment to the Act Against Unfair Competition, a presumption rule applies, according to which any form of compensation is automatically assumed to be commercial communication unless the creator can prove otherwise. In 2023 alone, the German state media authorities documented approximately 773 regulatory measures related to advertising labeling, demonstrating that this is by no means an isolated incident, but rather a systematic area of ​​enforcement. In addition to fines imposed by the media authorities, there is also the threat of cease-and-desist letters under competition law with claims ranging from €15,000 to €50,000, as well as contractual penalties arising from declarations of discontinuance, which can quickly amount to six-figure sums in the case of repeated violations. This already high level of enforcement in Germany suggests that a European Digital Fairness Act would encounter a comparatively well-prepared regulatory structure in Germany, while other member states may have significantly more catching up to do.

The Creator Economy: Between Professionalization and Crisis of Trust

The Walbrun case also reveals an industry-wide structural problem that extends beyond individual rule violations: the blurring of medical authority and commercial exploitation. Investigations showed that Walbrun had already founded a company in the lifestyle, longevity, and dietary supplement sector while still a medical student. In a free consultation format, she mistook common symptoms like fatigue or blood sugar fluctuations for supposed health problems before conveniently presenting her own product along with a discount code. The medical faculty of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich publicly distanced itself from unscientific statements that contradict the principles of evidence-based medicine after it became known that Walbrun was no longer working at the LMU University Hospital. From an economic perspective, this is a business model in which professional authority is systematically used to promote sales, representing a significantly greater breach of trust than classic product placement, because consumers typically exhibit less critical distance when it comes to medical statements. The Digital Fairness Act could be particularly effective in this area if it subjects the advertising of potentially health-relevant products by persons with alleged or actual professional authority to stricter labeling and verification requirements.

What brands, agencies and publishers can expect in the future

For companies commissioning influencer campaigns, the strategic landscape is fundamentally changing. Where previously the contractual delegation of the labeling obligation to the creator was often considered sufficient safeguard, the focus is increasingly shifting to a shared responsibility that can hardly be completely outsourced. This is being emphasized more strongly by both state media authorities in their fine practices and by future European regulations. For agencies, this means that approval processes, documentation requirements, and proof of actual labeling must become an integral part of operational campaign management – ​​not as an optional add-on service, but as a basic requirement for awarding contracts. Publishers who combine editorial content with commercial collaborations face the challenge of making the separation between advertising and editorial content even clearer, as editorial content disguised as advertising is already explicitly prohibited under current law. The economic consequence is obvious: compliance is transforming from a subsequent legal formality into an integral part of campaign budgeting. This increases costs in the short term but creates long-term planning security and significantly reduces the risk of existential crises like the one involving Diab.

An industry in transition

The combination of stricter national enforcement practices, an impending European framework law, and publicly impactful breaches of trust, such as the Walbrun case, points to an industry that will undergo fundamental restructuring in the coming years. It is likely that professional standards, such as mandatory review processes for cooperation requests, standardized labeling templates, and a clearer contractual allocation of liability risks between brands, agencies, and creators, will become the market standard in the next few years, as the costs of regulatory violations continue to rise. At the same time, it remains to be seen how precisely the Digital Fairness Act will actually be formulated, because an overly vague definition of terms like unfair personalization or addictive design could create new legal uncertainties, while an overly precise and narrow definition would facilitate circumvention strategies. For all involved, from individual creators to international brand corporations, the basic economic principle already applies that trust is a scarce and difficult-to-restore commodity, the abuse of which translates directly into measurable financial risks in an increasingly regulated and publicly scrutinized digital economy.

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