New York City’s POWER Act and a Dutch Proposal on Addictive Design: What Each Would Do

Two new proposals would change how unfair and manipulative practices are challenged. In New York City, the POWER Act would create a private right of action against businesses. In the Netherlands, a parliamentarian has proposed banning the most harmful addictive design features on digital services. Neither is law yet.

New York City: the POWER Act

Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Samuel A.A. Levine announced the People and Organizations Winning Economic Relief Act, known as the POWER Act, Int. No. 1105. It was introduced in the City Council at the mayor’s request. The bill would add a new Chapter 15 to Title 22 of the New York City Administrative Code and would take effect immediately upon enactment, with no required agency rulemaking, phase-in period or sunset.

It responds to the state’s 2026 FAIR Act, which strengthened General Business Law § 349 but did not give private plaintiffs a right to sue over unfair or abusive practices. Under § 349, private plaintiffs may sue only over “deceptive” practices and must plead “consumer-oriented” conduct.

What it would prohibit

The bill would prohibit unfair methods of competition and unfair, deceptive, abusive or unlawful acts or practices in or affecting business, trade or commerce.

• Unfair: an act or practice that causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to consumers that they cannot reasonably avoid, and that is not outweighed by countervailing benefits.
• Abusive: an act or practice that materially interferes with a consumer’s ability to understand a term or condition, or takes unreasonable advantage of their lack of understanding, inability to protect their interests, or reasonable reliance on the business.
• Deceptive and unlawful: deceptive practices without the reliance and consumer-orientation requirements that limit § 349 claims. The bill does not define “unlawful,” which, according to the analysis of the bill, would allow plaintiffs to privately enforce other city, state and federal requirements that lack their own private right of action.
• Unfair methods of competition: coercive, exploitative, collusive, abusive, deceptive, predatory, restrictive or exclusionary conduct that negatively affects competitive conditions.

“Injury” would mean any impairment of a person’s lawful interests, whether or not it is quantifiable, economic or monetary, expressly including loss of time, loss of privacy and loss of security.

Who could sue, and what they could recover

Any person injured by a violation could sue on their own behalf, on behalf of a group of similarly situated persons, or on behalf of the general public. Nonprofit organisations, including tenant unions, could sue on behalf of themselves, their members or the public.

Prevailing plaintiffs could recover actual damages, $2,500 per violation, injunctive and declaratory relief, and attorney’s fees and costs, which would be mandatory. The bill does not define “violation” or cap aggregate damages.

Limits on private suits

• Plaintiffs would generally have to notify the business and give it 10 business days to show in writing why the action should not be commenced, with exceptions including irreparable injury and exigent circumstances.
• Claims would have to be brought within three years of when the plaintiff knew or should have known of the violation.
• There would be a complete defense where the conduct is required by federal statutes, rules or regulations administered by the FTC or another federal agency.
• There would be no private right of action against the city or against small businesses, defined as independently owned entities that are not dominant in their field, employ four or fewer people and had less than $5 million in gross revenue in the prior year.

Pricing as a likely focus

According to the analysis of the bill, pricing technology is a likely early focus, and the Commissioner has signalled interest in AI and algorithmic practices. Because “injury” would include loss of privacy and need not be monetary, plaintiffs could try to challenge individualised pricing based on personal data without proving they paid more. They could also argue that pricing that changes in ways consumers cannot understand falls under the “abusive” prong, and use the “unlawful” prong to enforce existing pricing-disclosure rules, such as New York’s algorithmic pricing disclosure law.

Challenges the bill may face

The analysis lists several possible legal challenges: state preemption, given that a proposed private right of action for unfair practices was removed during the FAIR Act process; CPLR 901(b), which may limit class treatment of the $2,500 award; due process questions about uncapped statutory damages; and questions of municipal authority when the law is applied to businesses outside the city.

The Netherlands: a proposal on addictive design

PRO parliamentarian Barbara Kathmann submitted a legislative proposal on Monday to ban the most harmful addictive design features on digital services. The proposal names infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, push notifications and manipulative algorithms. Kathmann intends to classify manipulative design features as unfair commercial practices, which are already prohibited by law.

The proposal would also subject digital platforms to a “fairness by design” duty of care. Platforms would have to prove their online services are not addictive and that their features are designed to be fair and non-manipulative. It covers social media, games, dating apps and chatbots.

In Kathmann’s view, these products incorporate tricks that get people addicted and entice them to spend money. Current legislation primarily addresses physical products, she said, but online platforms have effectively become the new high street or marketplace. In her words, “If a toy doll is unsafe, we pull it from the market,” and the same should apply to digital products.

European legislation would be more effective in addressing harmful algorithms, the MP believes, but that process is taking too long, and she hopes the Dutch proposal will spur the European Union into action. Kathmann is working with parliamentarians in Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Italy and Portugal who also want to regulate these algorithms through legislation.

Fairpatterns detects manipulative and addictive design features automatically across platforms and at scale.