Know About The World Of Dark Patterns And 5 Ways To Avoid Them

In the recent light of the Government of India coming forward to deal with the menace of dark patterns in the e-commerce industry, there have been a lot of questions about what actually does the term means.

Dark patterns, as a term, holds a lot of significance in today’s time as everyone active over the Internet is facing the menace of it in some way or another.

Here, with the help of this article, we will help you understand in detail the concept, its impact, how are they being used to invade our privacy, and some recent government notifications.

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What are dark patterns?

As the name suggests, dark patterns are graphical misleads in the user interface that is meant to deceive the user by making them perform a task that they won’t generally prefer. They are mostly misleading and often lead to annoyance. They are named dark because they are deceptive and in harsher terms they mean to cheat and burn out the patience of users acting on it.

The term was coined by Harry Brignull, a UX specialist in 2010.

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Examples around us

Some of the famous e-commerce websites including big giants such as Amazon have indulged in such activities previously. This matter was highlighted once European Union (EU) pointed out the unclear procedure of subscription cancellation and how people found it difficult to locate the cancel button due to the dark patterns involved.

Earlier in 2022, Amazon nodded to simplify the procedure and make the user experience better.

The e-commerce industry is filled with multiple such examples where one cannot find the unsubscribe options from the email. Even after a thorough search when one would find it, it would be tucked in the bottom portion with a lighter font and the smallest size possible, making it difficult for people to opt for their choice.

Besides, there may be some e-commerce sites where you have to click on promotional offers because you don’t get a close button. As a result, you end up on a purchasing page, which leads to unnecessary waste of time.

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Impact Of Dark Patterns

These are some of the common impacts of dark patterns and how they have invaded our online activities.

• Invades privacy as it often leads to compromising of personal data of an individual.
• Unknowingly accepting terms and conditions that would help a website get access to emails.
• Selecting some toolbar or anti-virus software installation while downloading some software.
• Falling into click baits and opting for those promotions that you would not have generally gone for.
• Difficulty in procedure made by websites for someone to reject cookies.

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Ways to avoid them

We have spent quite some time understanding the concept of dark patterns and the impact it has on us. Let us delve a bit deeper into the methods of how to avoid them. 1. Be attentive to what you are opting for. Make sure that whenever you have the option to accept cookies and manage them, you look into details and manage them at your end. This will help you not give away your personal data.

2. If you are unable to locate the unsubscribe button on the emails from a website, try to zoom in and check if there is an option for unsubscribing hidden between the same font colour and size.
Websites often use this method to stop people from leaving them. Again, if you are still not able to locate it, raise a consumer complaint on their website.

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3. Facebook and Instagram are specifically notorious for adding terms and conditions for cross-application tracking in thousands of words. Users don’t pay attention to it and end up compromising their data too. Be sure that you read all necessary T&C (if you do not want to simply give away your data even though it is time taking!)

4. Before checking out for payment on an e-commerce site, make sure that only the needed costs are added. Sometimes websites add unnecessary insurance, and donations on the pretext of an accepted T&C while downloading the app.

5. Through the use of flowery words and promotional offers, they may trick you into accepting something some clauses of the website giving them free access to your browser data, searches, and personal data. Stay alert and do not fall into such traps.

Recent government notification on dark patterns

Secretary of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs called these dark patterns an “unfair trade practice” and “cause of concern.” Reportedly, the government is in plans to make guidelines to regulate this practice. Additionally, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) pointed to the unchecked use of dark patterns against the consumer benefit.

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Synopsis

Big giants in the game such as LinkedIn have faced the brunt of playing with their users using dark patterns. This led to a legal challenge and the company had to ultimately pay USD 13 million as compensation to the complainants.

It is in the best regard of any company to maintain the trust of the users that they have built over the years. However, considering the profits they make through such tricks makes them stick to such actions even after multiple interventions in one way or the other. As a user, you have to stay aware and secure yourself to fall into such traps as much as possible.

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