Ethics at the Edge: Neuromarketing, Consent and Consumer Protection in Digital Markets

Law and Economics Yearly Review. 2025. Vol. 14. No. 1. P. 157–201.

Ettore Maria Lombardi, Ivanov A.

 Neuromarketing – the fusion of neuroscience and marketing – has emerged as a frontier in the digital marketplace, offering unprecedented insight into consumer behavior while raising profound ethical and legal challenges. By harnessing brain imaging, biometric sensors and AI-driven analytics, firms can target consumers at a subconscious level, potentially bypassing rational choice. This article examines the intersection of neuromarketing practices with the law of consent and consumer protection, with a particular focus on European private law and comparative perspectives from the UK, US and international frameworks. The analysis explores how EU data protection law (especially the GDPR) and consumer law address neuromarketing’s novel risks to autonomy and privacy, and how emerging regimes like the UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 respond to manipulative marketing techniques. Drawing on case studies – including a UK regulatory action against “GlobalSocial” and the class action Wilson v. RetailTech1 – the discussion indirectly illustrates how neuromarketing is testing the limits of informed consent, fair advertising standards, and liability in contract and tort. With cognitive liberty increasingly invoked as a fundamental right in an era of brain-centric technologies, this article argues for a coherent legal framework that safeguards consumers’ mental autonomy in digital markets. It proposes doctrinal refinements and enforcement strategies to ensure that innovation in neuromarketing remains bounded by principles of informed consent, fairness, and respect for the sanctity of the human mind. 

Keywords: antitrust law, neuromarketing, comparative private law, digital economy