Dark Patterns

• Context (HT): Recently, a Bengaluru man slammed Swiggy’s Instamart for adding free tomatoes to his order and called it a ‘dark pattern’.

What are Dark Patterns?

• Dark patterns are deceptive practices employed to influence user behaviour in a way that benefits the company implementing it.
• Coined by UX designer Harry Brignull in 2010, these patterns exploit cognitive biases and use tactics like false urgency, forced actions, and hidden costs to steer user behaviour.
• Ranges from overt tricks to subtle manipulations that are not immediately recognisable.
• Deceptive patterns that manipulate consumer choice and impede their right to be well-informed constitute unfair practices prohibited under the Consumer Protection Act 2019.

Examples of Dark Patterns

• False Urgency: Falsely stating the urgency/scarcity to make someone buy something quickly. (E.g., Hurry Up! Only a few are left in stock).
• Basket sneaking: Inclusion of additional items such as products, services, payments to charity/donation at the time of checkout from a platform without the user’s consent.
• Confirm shaming: Using a phrase, video, audio, or any other means to create a sense of fear, shame, ridicule, or guilt in the user’s mind to nudge the user to act in a certain way.
• Forced action: Forcing a user into taking an action requiring the user to buy any additional good(s) or subscribe or sign up for an unrelated service.
• Nagging: Users face an overload of requests, information, options, or interruptions.
• Bait and switch: Advertising a particular outcome based on the user’s action but deceptively serving an alternate outcome.
• Interface interference: A design element that manipulates the user interface to highlight certain specific information and obscure other relevant information.
  • For instance, On IndiGo’s mobile application, the skip option is placed in the top right corner but displayed in a tiny font.

How Companies Use Dark Patterns?

• Social media platforms and Big Tech firms like Apple, Amazon, Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Google often use dark patterns to their advantage.
• Amazon was criticised in the EU for its confusing, multi-step process for cancelling Amazon Prime subscriptions. In 2022, Amazon simplified this process for European customers.
• LinkedIn users frequently receive unsolicited, sponsored messages from influencers, and disabling this option involves a complex process.
• YouTube uses pop-ups urging users to sign up for YouTube Premium, often obscuring the final seconds of a video with other video thumbnails.

Efforts to Combat Dark Patterns

Global Efforts

• In March 2021, California passed amendments to the California Consumer Privacy Act, prohibiting dark patterns that impede consumers from exercising their privacy rights.
• The UK issued guidelines in April 2019, later enforceable under the Data Protection Act of 2018, to prevent companies from manipulating underage users into low-privacy settings.

India’s Effort

• The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution has established a 17-member task force to develop consumer protection guidelines to address the issue of Dark Patterns.
• The Ministry has also started classifying complaints received on the National Consumer Helpline to compile information on Dark Patterns, which the Central Consumer Protection Authority can use to initiate action under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

Guidelines to Curb Dark Patterns

• In September 2023, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MoCA) released draft guidelines to curb “dark patterns” online platforms use.
• The objective is to identify and define tactics as dark patterns so the MoCA can act against platforms indulging in this under Section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
• According to the draft document, “dark patterns” encompass:
  • Any practices or deceptive design patterns within UI/UX (user interface/experience) interactions.
  • Purposefully crafted manipulative triggers that trick the user into taking an action.
  • Undermining consumer autonomy, decision-making, or choice, ultimately leading to misleading advertising, unfair trade practices, or violations of consumer rights.

• The document specifies ten types of dark patterns: False urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, forced action, subscription trap, interface interference, bait and switch, drip pricing, disguised advertising, and nagging.