The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, usually called the DMCC Act, is the UK law that gave the Competition and Markets Authority new powers over large technology firms and rewrote much of consumer protection law. For marketers, its effect is new rules on reviews and pricing, and much larger penalties for unfair practices.
How the DMCC Act works
The Act received Royal Assent in May 2024 and has come into force in stages. Four parts matter for marketing.
Unfair commercial practices
Since 6 April 2025, the Act has replaced the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. The general tests are familiar: a practice is unfair if it misleads by action or omission, is aggressive, or falls below the standard of professional diligence and is likely to change what an average consumer does. A list of banned practices in Schedule 20 is always unfair, with no need to show its effect. The Act added new entries covering reviews, including writing or commissioning fake reviews, hiding the fact that a review was incentivised, and presenting reviews in a misleading way, such as suppressing negative ones.
Prices and hidden fees
An invitation to buy must show the total price, including any mandatory fees, taxes and charges a consumer cannot avoid. A headline price that later grows with a compulsory booking or service fee is drip pricing, and it is treated as misleading.
Enforcement
The CMA can now decide for itself that consumer law has been broken and fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover, without first going to court. Trading Standards continue to enforce the same rules locally.
Subscription contracts
A separate chapter sets new rules for subscriptions: clear information before sign-up, reminders before renewals and the end of free trials, cooling-off rights and an easy way to cancel. These rules have been delayed more than once. At the time of writing (October 2026), the government has said they will start in January 2027, so check the current position on GOV.UK before planning around a date.
The Act also created the digital markets regime, under which the CMA designated Google’s general search and search advertising services with strategic market status in October 2025.
Why it matters for a UK business
The consumer rules apply to every business selling to consumers, not only large platforms. A salon that adds a compulsory booking fee at checkout, a shop that pays a service for five-star reviews, an online course that rolls into a monthly payment without a clear reminder: each is in scope. The size of potential fines has drawn attention from boards, and review platforms now have stronger reasons to remove reviews that look fake or incentivised.
Common mistakes
- Showing “from” prices in ads that exclude a fee every customer must pay.
- Offering vouchers or prize draws for reviews without making the incentive clear on the review.
- Hiding, delaying or filtering negative reviews on your own site.
- Scarcity and countdown messages that are not true.
- Assuming the subscription rules are either already in force or a long way off, without checking.
How to act on it
Check every price in your ads, on landing pages and at checkout, and make sure compulsory charges are in the first price a customer sees. Review how you collect and display reviews, and record what you changed. If you sell subscriptions, map your sign-up, renewal and cancellation journey now against the published rules. I build landing pages for ads with the full price and any conditions visible above the fold, which is both safer under the Act and usually better for conversion.