Subscription Traps & Fake Reviews: What The UK's New Digital Markets Act Means For Marketers

The digital marketplace is on the verge of its most significant shake-up in a generation. For years, marketers have navigated a landscape with grey areas, particularly around recurring payments and user-generated content. But the era of ambiguity is over. The United Kingdom has drawn a firm line in the sand with the landmark Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act. This sweeping piece of legislation is set to fundamentally reshape the rules of online engagement, with a direct and powerful focus on two of the most contentious consumer issues: 'subscription traps' and fake online reviews.

For digital marketers, e-commerce managers, and business owners, this isn't just another regulatory update to file away. The DMCC Act introduces stringent new requirements, backed by the formidable enforcement power of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which can now levy fines of up to 10% of a company's global annual turnover. The message from regulators is crystal clear: transparency, fairness, and authenticity are no longer optional extras; they are the mandatory price of admission to the UK's digital economy. This guide will unpack everything you need to know about the new UK subscription regulations and fake reviews law, providing a clear roadmap to not only achieve e-commerce compliance but also to leverage these changes as a competitive advantage.

What is the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act?

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) Act is a comprehensive piece of UK legislation designed to modernise consumer protection laws and foster fairer competition in the digital age. It represents a proactive effort by the UK government to address business practices that have eroded consumer trust and created an uneven playing field for companies. After a lengthy period of consultation and parliamentary scrutiny, the bill received Royal Assent, officially passing it into law and setting the stage for its phased implementation.

At its core, the DMCC Act grants the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) significantly enhanced powers to directly enforce consumer law, investigate anti-competitive behaviour, and regulate the most powerful technology firms. It consolidates and strengthens various existing consumer rights, while also introducing brand new rules specifically tailored to the challenges of the online marketplace. The legislation is broadly split into three key pillars: reforming digital competition, strengthening consumer protection enforcement, and updating specific consumer rights, with the latter two having the most immediate impact on the daily operations of most UK marketers.

Key Goals of the New UK Legislation

The government's intentions with the DMCC Act are multifaceted, aiming to create a more equitable and trustworthy digital environment for everyone. The primary objectives can be summarised as follows:

• Boosting Consumer Confidence: By outlawing deceptive practices like subscription traps and fake reviews, the Act aims to empower consumers, making them feel more secure when spending money online.
• Promoting Fair Competition: The Act establishes a new regulatory regime for the most powerful tech firms designated with 'Strategic Market Status' (SMS). This is designed to prevent these giants from using their dominance to stifle innovation and limit consumer choice.
• Streamlining Enforcement: A major goal is to make the CMA a more agile and effective regulator. By granting it the power to directly decide if a law has been broken and to impose fines without a lengthy court process, the Act makes enforcement faster and more impactful.
• Modernising Consumer Law: The legislation updates rules that were created long before the subscription economy and online review platforms became ubiquitous, ensuring the law is fit for the 21st-century digital landscape.

Who Needs to Comply and When?

The simple answer is that almost every business that sells to UK consumers online needs to pay close attention to the DMCC Act. The rules targeting subscription traps and fake reviews are not limited to large corporations; they apply to any business, regardless of size, that offers subscription services or uses customer reviews in its marketing. This includes SaaS companies, e-commerce stores with 'subscribe and save' models, digital media publishers, and any service that involves recurring payments.

While the portion of the Act dealing with 'Strategic Market Status' will only apply to a handful of global tech giants, the consumer protection elements have a universal reach. The Act has now passed into law, but the provisions will come into force in stages. The government will release further guidance and set specific commencement dates for different parts of the legislation. However, the direction of travel is clear. Marketers and business owners should not wait for the final implementation date to begin their preparations. The time to audit your practices, update your processes, and ensure you are ready for this new era of UK subscription regulations is now. Proactive compliance is the only way to avoid the significant risks associated with this new digital marketing legislation.

Tackling 'Subscription Traps': A New Era of Transparency

One of the most significant consumer-facing changes in the Digital Markets Act UK is the direct assault on 'subscription traps'. These are business models that make it easy for consumers to sign up for a recurring payment but intentionally or neglectfully make it difficult to cancel. The UK government estimates that consumers spend billions each year on subscriptions they no longer want, often due to opaque terms and convoluted cancellation processes. The new law aims to end this by enforcing radical transparency and simplicity throughout the entire subscription lifecycle.

What the Law Defines as a 'Subscription Trap'

The DMCC Act doesn't just target overtly malicious practices. It broadens the definition to include any subscription model that fails to meet new, high standards of clarity and fairness. Under the new fake reviews law UK, a subscription service could be deemed a 'trap' if it involves any of the following:

• Insufficient Pre-Contract Information: Failing to provide clear, upfront information about the total price, the frequency of payments, the minimum commitment period, and the cancellation policy before the customer signs up. This information must be presented prominently, not buried in dense terms and conditions.
• Lack of Renewal Reminders: The law will mandate that businesses send clear reminders to consumers before a subscription renews. This is particularly crucial for free or discounted trial periods that automatically roll into a paid plan, and for annual renewals where a consumer might have forgotten about the upcoming charge.
• Complicated Cancellation Processes: The Act champions the principle of 'simple exit'. This means the process for cancelling a subscription should be as easy as it was to sign up. Businesses will be prohibited from forcing customers to navigate complex phone menus, engage in lengthy web chats, or complete unreasonable steps to terminate a contract. A straightforward, single communication (like clicking a button in an account dashboard) should be sufficient.
• Hidden Auto-Renewals: Automatically renewing a contract without explicitly and clearly informing the consumer beforehand will be a direct breach of the new rules.

A Compliance Checklist for Your Subscription Services

To prepare for the new UK subscription regulations and avoid being penalised, marketers and e-commerce managers must conduct a thorough audit of their subscription models. Here is a practical checklist to guide your review:

1. Review Your Sign-Up Page: Is all key information presented before the 'buy' button? This includes the price after the trial, billing frequency, and a direct link to the cancellation policy. Use clear headings and bold text.
2. Map Your Cancellation Journey: Get a team member to try and cancel a subscription. How many clicks does it take? Do they have to speak to a person? The goal should be a simple, one-step or two-step process accessible from the main account settings. If you offer sign-up via an app, you must offer cancellation via the app.
3. Implement Automated Reminders: Set up an automated email or notification system. A reminder should be sent for the end of a trial period and before any annual or other long-term contract renews, giving the customer adequate time to cancel.
4. Update Your Terms and Conditions: Ensure your T&Cs are written in plain English and accurately reflect the new legal requirements. Specifically, detail the cancellation process and the consumer's rights.
5. Introduce a Cooling-Off Period: The DMCC Act introduces a 14-day cooling-off period at the start of the subscription and after each renewal following a free or discounted trial. Ensure your processes can handle cancellations and refunds during this window.
6. Train Your Customer Service Team: Your support staff must be fully aware of the new consumer rights UK. They should be trained to facilitate cancellations promptly and not to use retention tactics that could be seen as an illegal barrier.

The Crackdown on Fake Reviews: Restoring Consumer Trust

Alongside subscription traps, the DMCC Act takes aim at another pervasive issue that undermines consumer trust: fake online reviews. For years, the CMA has identified fake reviews as a major problem, misleading consumers into making poor purchasing decisions. While previously tackled under general consumer protection regulations, the new Act makes publishing or commissioning fake reviews a specific, blacklisted illegal practice. This move significantly raises the stakes for businesses that rely on user-generated content for marketing.

Why Fake Reviews Are Now Expressly Illegal

The new fake reviews law UK is designed to tackle the problem from multiple angles. The legislation makes it unequivocally illegal for a business to:

• Commission or write fake positive reviews: This includes paying third parties to create fake profiles and post glowing reviews for your own products or services.
• Commission or write fake negative reviews: It is also illegal to post or pay for negative reviews of a competitor's products or services to gain an unfair advantage.
• Misrepresent reviews: This covers practices like cherry-picking only the best reviews for display while hiding or deleting legitimate negative feedback. It also includes selectively publishing reviews from a different product on another product page to make it appear more popular or well-regarded than it is.

Crucially, the law places a new responsibility on businesses to take “reasonable and proportionate steps” to prevent and remove fake reviews from their platforms. This means businesses can no longer turn a blind eye. They must proactively ensure the authenticity of the reviews they host and display. This is a fundamental shift from a reactive to a proactive compliance model for e-commerce compliance UK.

Best Practices for Legally Collecting and Displaying Customer Reviews

To comply with the new digital marketing legislation and build genuine brand trust, businesses must adopt a transparent and robust review management strategy. Here are some best practices:

1. Implement a Verification System: The most effective way to ensure authenticity is to link reviews to actual purchases. Use systems that label reviews with a 'Verified Purchase' badge. This immediately signals to consumers that the review comes from a genuine customer.
2. Establish a Clear Moderation Policy: Create and publish a clear policy outlining your rules for reviews. This should explain the criteria for rejecting a review (e.g., profanity, spam, off-topic comments) but must make it clear that reviews will not be removed simply for being negative.
3. Do Not Suppress Negative Reviews: Legitimate negative reviews, while painful, are a crucial part of an authentic review profile. They build trust and provide valuable feedback. Engage with negative reviews professionally and offer solutions. Deleting them is now a clear breach of the law.
4. Be Transparent About Incentives: If you offer an incentive for leaving a review (such as a discount on a future purchase), you must be transparent about it. Crucially, the incentive cannot be conditional on the review being positive. You must reward all honest feedback equally.
5. Train Your Team: Ensure your marketing and customer service teams understand the new rules. They must know what constitutes a fake review and be aware of the company's moderation and publication policies.
6. Use Reputable Third-Party Platforms: Consider using well-regarded third-party review platforms that have their own robust verification and anti-fraud measures in place.

What Are the Penalties for Non-Compliance?

Perhaps the most compelling reason for marketers to take the DMCC Act seriously is the sheer scale of the potential penalties. The new legislation is not just a set of guidelines; it's a rulebook with severe consequences for infringement. The Act fundamentally strengthens the powers of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), transforming it from an investigator into a direct enforcer of consumer law.

The Strengthened Powers of the CMA

Historically, to penalise a company for breaching consumer law, the CMA had to go through a lengthy and often costly court process. This created a significant lag in enforcement and meant that many infringements went unpunished. The DMCC Act changes this entirely. The CMA now has the power to:

• Directly enforce the law: The CMA can investigate and decide for itself whether a business has breached consumer protection laws, including the new rules on subscription traps and fake reviews.
• Impose monetary penalties: Without needing court approval, the CMA can directly levy substantial fines on non-compliant businesses.
• Demand redress for consumers: The authority can order businesses to compensate consumers who have been harmed by their illegal practices.
• Enforce compliance: The CMA can issue legally binding directions to businesses, forcing them to change their practices to comply with the law.

This new competition law UK makes the CMA one of the most powerful consumer regulators in the world, and businesses should expect a more proactive and assertive approach to enforcement.

Potential Fines for Breaching the Rules

The financial penalties outlined in the DMCC Act are designed to be a powerful deterrent. For breaches of consumer protection law, such as running a subscription trap or facilitating fake reviews, the CMA can impose fines of up to **10% of a business's global annual turnover**. This is a potentially company-altering sum that applies to a business's entire worldwide revenue, not just its UK operations.

For individual infringements, such as failing to provide required information, fines can be up to £300,000. It's also important to note that the Act introduces the potential for personal liability for company directors, who could be disqualified if their company commits a breach. The sheer size of these penalties means that compliance with the DMCC Act must be a top-tier priority for every marketing department and C-suite in the UK.

Actionable Steps to Prepare Your Marketing Strategy Now

Understanding the law is the first step, but proactive implementation is what will protect your business. Waiting for the first enforcement actions is a risky strategy. Here’s how you can start preparing your marketing and e-commerce operations immediately.

Step 1: Audit Your Subscription Funnel

A top-to-bottom review of your subscription process is non-negotiable. Treat this as a formal project, not a quick check.

• Map the User Journey: Document every single step a customer takes from the moment they see a subscription offer to the moment they successfully cancel. Use flowcharts and screenshots.
• Scrutinise Pre-Contract Information: On your sign-up and checkout pages, compare the information you provide against the DMCC Act's requirements. Is the total cost clear? Are renewal dates and prices prominent? Is the minimum term obvious?
• Test the Cancellation Path: As mentioned before, have someone unfamiliar with your backend systems try to cancel. Measure the time and number of clicks. If it's harder than signing up, it needs to be redesigned.
• Review Your Email Flows: Check your automated email sequences. Do you have triggers for renewal reminders? For end-of-trial warnings? Ensure the language is clear, unambiguous, and directly informs the user of the upcoming charge and how to cancel.

Step 2: Review Your Customer Review Policies

Your approach to user-generated content needs to be formalised and legally sound. This is about protecting your brand reputation as much as it is about legal compliance.

• Assess Your Current Reviews: Look at your existing reviews. Can you verify their authenticity? Are you displaying a balanced selection? Do you have a process for spotting and investigating suspicious reviews?
• Develop a Public-Facing Policy: Draft and publish a clear policy on your website that explains how you collect, verify, and moderate reviews. This transparency builds trust and serves as an internal guide.
• Implement Verification Technology: If you don't already have one, invest in a system that links reviews to confirmed transactions. This is the gold standard for compliance.
• Train Your Staff: Run a training session with your marketing, social media, and customer service teams. They need to understand they cannot delete bad reviews, solicit only positive ones, or write reviews themselves.

Step 3: Update Your Terms of Service & Privacy Policies

Your legal documents must reflect the new reality. This is not a task for the marketing team alone; it requires collaboration with legal counsel.

• Engage Legal Experts: Have a lawyer familiar with UK consumer law review and update your Terms of Service to incorporate the new subscription and review requirements.
• Use Plain English: While legal precision is necessary, strive to make your policies understandable to the average consumer. The spirit of the DMCC Act is transparency, and this should extend to your legal documents.
• Communicate Changes to Customers: When you update your terms, inform your existing customer base. This is good practice and further demonstrates your commitment to transparency.

Conclusion: Turning Compliance into a Competitive Advantage

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act is more than a regulatory hurdle; it's a paradigm shift. For too long, a minority of businesses have profited from deceptive practices, damaging the reputation of the entire digital economy. This new legislation levels the playing field, rewarding companies that prioritise transparency, fairness, and customer trust.

Marketers who view the DMCC Act as a compliance-ticking exercise will miss the bigger picture. The businesses that will thrive in this new landscape are those that embrace the spirit of the law. By making subscriptions easy to manage, you reduce churn and build loyalty. By fostering a culture of authentic reviews, you create a powerful, trustworthy brand. Compliance with the Digital Markets Act UK shouldn't be seen as a cost centre, but as an investment in a more sustainable, ethical, and profitable future. It's an opportunity to build stronger relationships with your customers and solidify your reputation as a brand that deserves their trust.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about the DMCC Act

When does the DMCC Act take effect?

The DMCC Act received Royal Assent in May 2024, officially making it law. However, its various provisions will be implemented in stages. The government will announce specific commencement dates, so businesses should monitor updates from official sources like the UK government website and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

Does the DMCC Act apply to my small business?

Yes. While certain parts of the Act target very large tech firms, the new consumer protection rules regarding subscription traps and fake reviews apply to any business, regardless of size, that sells to UK consumers. If you offer a subscription service or use customer reviews, you must comply.

What is the easiest way to make my subscription service compliant?

The key principle is to make cancelling as easy as signing up. Implement a clear, single-click cancellation button within the user's account settings. Additionally, ensure you provide all key pricing and renewal information upfront and send automated reminders before any trial ends or a renewal occurs.

Can I still ask customers for reviews?

Absolutely. You are encouraged to ask for genuine feedback. However, you cannot selectively ask only happy customers, and you cannot incentivise positive reviews. Any incentive offered must be for providing an honest review, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. You must also have reasonable procedures to verify that reviews are genuine.