Knowledge Nugget: What are dark patterns and why are they under scrutiny?

Key Takeaways:

1. According to the study published by LocalCircles, over 95 per cent of publicly-listed companies involved in online consumer transactions are riddled with various dark patterns. These dark patterns are deployed during the online selection, transaction, and returns or refund journey of consumers.

2. “Dark patterns”, also known as deceptive patterns, refer to practices and deliberate mechanisms hidden in websites intended to manipulate users into sharing data or making choices they otherwise won’t usually make by pressurising or misleading them. 

3. Some examples of dark patterns include forcing users to provide personal information to view product offerings on websites, deliberately making it difficult for users to cancel subscriptions, and spam calling to push products.

Let’s understand the ‘dark pattern’ through an example: Think of that annoying advertisement that keeps popping up on your screen, and you can’t find the cross mark ‘X’ to make it go away because the mark is too small to notice (or to click/tap). Worse, when you try to click/tap on the tiny ‘X’, you sometimes end up tapping the ad instead.

4. The deceptive tactics primarily rely on manipulative interface designs through subscription renewals, forced cancellation processes, inaccurate pricing displays, consent mechanisms, personalised recommendations, gamified engagement, and behavioural nudges that influence consumer decisions.

5. The term dark patterns was coined by Harry Brignull, a London-based user experience (UX) designer, in 2010. 

Dark Patterns specified by CCPA

6. Notably, on December 1, 2023, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued guidelines for the “prevention and regulation” of dark patterns. It has specified 13 dark patterns.

(i) False urgency: Creates a sense of urgency or scarcity to pressure consumers into making a purchase or taking an action. It includes showing false popularity of a product or service to manipulate user decisions or stating that quantities of a particular product or service are more limited than they actually are.

(ii) Basket sneaking: Dark patterns are used to add additional products or services to the shopping cart without the user’s consent.

(iii) Confirm shaming: Uses guilt to make consumers adhere; criticises or attacks consumers for not conforming to a particular belief or viewpoint.

(iv) Forced action: Pushes consumers into taking an action they may not want to take, such as signing up for a service in order to access content.

(v) Nagging: User is disrupted and annoyed by repeated and persistent interactions, in the form of requests, information, options, or interruptions, to effectuate a transaction and make some commercial gains, unless specifically permitted by the user.

(vi) Subscription traps: Easy to sign up for a service but difficult to quit or cancel; option is hidden or requires multiple steps; forcing a user to provide payment details or authorization for auto debits for availing a free subscription; or making the instructions related to cancellation of subscription ambiguous, latent, confusing, cumbersome.

(vii) Bait & switch: Advertising a certain product/ service but delivering another, often of lower quality;

(viii) Rogue Malwares: Using a ransomware or scareware to mislead or trick user into believing there is a virus on their computer and aims to convince them to pay for a fake malware removal tool that actually installs malware on their computer.

(ix) Disguised ads: Designed to look like content, such as news articles or user-generated content.

(x) Interface interference: Manipulate the user interface in a way that highlights certain specific information and obscures other obscures other relevant information relative to the other information; to misdirect a user from taking an action as desired.

(xi) Drip pricing: A ‘dark pattern’ practice whereby elements of prices are not revealed upfront or are revealed surreptitiously within the user experience, or revealing the price post-confirmation of purchase, or a product or service is advertised as free without appropriate disclosure of the fact that the continuation of use requires in-app purchase.

(xii) Trick Question: Deliberate use of confusing or vague language like confusing wording, double negatives, or other similar tricks, in order to misguide or misdirect a user from taking the desired action or leading the consumer to take a specific response or action.

(xiii) Saas billing: Generating and collecting payments from consumers on a recurring basis in a software as a service (SaaS) business model by exploiting positive acquisition loops in recurring subscriptions to get money from users as surreptitiously as possible.

BEYOND THE NUGGET: IRDAI’s step to curb dark patterns

1. To curb dark patterns in insurance, IRDAI is now seemingly tightening regulations surrounding “dark patterns” across many digital insurance marketplaces in order to boost consumer trust.

2. The regulator has partnered with the statutory body Institute of Public Auditors of India to monitor dark patterns across the industry over a period of 9 months. This comes after the regulator in April had directed insurers to conduct a self-assessment on dark patterns and submit observations.

Post Read Question

Consider the following statements:

1. Dark pattern is a deceptive attempt made by e-commerce platforms to make users do things that they otherwise wouldn’t.

2. ‘Saas billing’ is identified as a dark pattern by the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA).

3. In the ‘Bait and Switch’ dark pattern, elements of prices are not revealed upfront or are revealed post-confirmation of purchase.

How many of the above statements are correct?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

Answer key

(b)

(Sources: Why IRDAI has brought in a statutory body to curb dark patterns in insurance,  New study finds 95% of India’s public companies use dark patterns, calls for SEBI crackdown,   Center notifies guidelines against ‘dark patterns’ that mislead buyers)

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