Dark pattern: Difference between revisions

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===Sneaking and information hiding===

These practices involve concealing or obscuring material information from users. Hidden costs reveal unexpected fees only at checkout, a practice employed by ticketing platforms. Drip pricing advertises only part of a product's total price initially and then imposes other mandatory charges later.<ref name=":0" />

These practices involve concealing or obscuring material information from users, such as

*Hidden costs reveal unexpected fees only at checkout, a practice employed by ticketing platforms

*Drip pricing advertises only part of a product's total price initially and then imposes other mandatory charges later<ref name=":0" />

*Checking a box by default that installs [[Bloatware|potentially-unwanted software]], such as an "anti-virus" that's actually [[spyware]] or a [[wikipedia:Cryptocurrency#Mining|crypto-miner]]

===Social proof and urgency===

These patterns exploit social influence and time pressure to manipulate decisions. False activity messages misrepresent site activity or product popularity. False scarcity creates pressure to buy immediately by claiming limited inventory. Baseless countdown timers display fake countdown clocks that reset when expired.

===False choice===

This category includes any form of providing 2 or more "options" or "choices" to the user (each one with pros and cons), but only one or a few of them are reasonable and/or pragmatic. A more specific subset of this category, consists on providing extremely coarse ("''[[wikipedia:False_dilemma|all or nothing]]''") choices. Examples:

*[[Web cookie|Cookie]] prompts where the only choices are "Accept all" and "Reject all". If the user clicks "Reject", they have to login everytime they switch to a different page, and none of their settings/preferences are saved. If the user clicks "Accept", they get tracked by several third-parties.

*[[Android]] doesn't consider <code>[https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#INTERNET INTERNET]</code> as a "[https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview#runtime dangerous]" permission, so users can only enable or disable internet access for all apps. In contrast, [[GrapheneOS]] supports setting internet-access on a per-app basis. There's speculation that [[Google]] hasn't implemented this granularity because it would decrease their ad-revenue, as users could simply block internet for any app with ads while still having internet on the apps they care about.<ref>[[Talk:Android data collection#3p section]]</ref> See also [[Google#Banning domain-blockers from Play Store]].

Like many other types of dark patterns, this one is [[malicious compliance]], as they pretend to "care about the user's privacy" by giving them choices, but the choices are deliberately set-up to force users to choose the ones that benefit the company at the expense of the user.

==Mind tricks and business incentives==

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==Impact on consumers and businesses==

~~''Editor note: This entire section reads as LLM.''~~

===Consumer harms===

~~Dark patterns create multiple forms of harm for~~ consumers, ~~ranging from~~ financial ~~losses to~~ privacy ~~violations~~ and emotional distress. Privacy harms occur when users are manipulated into sharing more personal data than they intended. Emotional and psychological harms include frustration, stress, and feelings of betrayal.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":11" />

A dark pattern is harmful to consumers in many ways, often leading to financial loss, violations of privacy, and emotional distress.

~~Vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected. "People with low digital literacy~~, ~~cognitive impairments~~, ~~or disabilities often struggle~~ to ~~recognize manipulative designs~~."

Dark patterns could manipulate consumers financially by faking urgency, importance, scarcity, and sales to trick them into making purchases they might not have made if they were able to make a properly informed decision.

===~~Business implications~~===

They could also be used violate the consumers privacy by hiding information on what data a service collects and how that data is used, and hiding or excluding options to stop data collection or delete already collected data.

~~While~~ dark patterns ~~may deliver short-term benefits~~, they ~~often create long-term risks for businesses~~. ~~The erosion of~~ consumer ~~trust can have lasting negative impacts on customer retention~~ and ~~brand reputation. Businesses also face increasing regulatory risks as enforcement actions become~~ more ~~common and severe~~.<ref name=":0" />

The above examples of how consumers may be affected are often combined with or directly involve dark patterns that cause emotional distress, often attempting to frustrate the consumer enough to accept what patterns are being used against them, and stop looking for any in-site settings or other methods to bypass the patterns.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":11" />

The most vulnerable consumers are those who are unfamiliar with computers and the internet, and those with mental or physical disabilities that impair them from either recognizing dark patterns or avoiding them if possible.

===Impact on businesses===

Dark patterns are often effective enough to be used by a wide range of businesses regardless of how successful they are. Even when consumers discover that a service they use contains dark patterns, they're highly unlikely to stop using the service or inform other users which in turn makes it highly unlikely a business will stop using dark patterns. Despite consumer backlash being unlikely to lead to any change, many dark patterns violate consumer protection laws and could lead to heavy lawsuits against businesses which are much more effective.<ref name=":0" />

==Detection, avoidance and mitigation==

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==Gallery==

Examples of dark patterns, with notes.

===[[Carly]]===

File:MyCarly website cookies dark pattern.png|alt=An example of MyCarly.com manipulating the user by minimizing the appearance of the "More" option while emphasizing only the "Accept" button.|An example of manipulating the user by minimizing the noticeability of the "More" option while emphasizing only the "Accept" button.

File:MyCarly website cookies 1.png|alt=Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.|Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.

File:MyCarly website cookies 1.png|Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.

File:MyCarly website cookies 2.png|~~alt=~~Mixpanel is labeled as "essential", but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation that it's a tracker. MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker is still a tracker. Google Tag Manager is also enabled by default, with the same issue as the previous image.~~|Mixpanel is labeled as~~ "~~essential~~"~~, but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation~~ that it's ~~a tracker~~. ~~MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker~~ is ~~still a tracker~~. ~~Google Tag Manager~~ is ~~also~~ enabled by default, with ~~the same issue as the previous image~~.

File:MyCarly website cookies 2.png|Mixpanel is labeled as "essential", but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation that it's a tracker. MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker is still a tracker. Google Tag Manager is also enabled by default, with the same issue as the previous image.

</gallery>

===[[The Economist]]===

File:The Economist website cookies dark pattern.png|The message that appears on user's visit to the website. Cookie management is located closely above the bright Continue button.

File:The Economist website cookies.png|"Do not sell or share" is enabled by default, but comes with a disclaimer. (See file page for further notes.)

</gallery>

@@ Line 26: / Line 26: @@
 ===Sneaking and information hiding===
-These practices involve concealing or obscuring material information from users. Hidden costs reveal unexpected fees only at checkout, a practice employed by ticketing platforms. Drip pricing advertises only part of a product's total price initially and then imposes other mandatory charges later.<ref name=":0" />
+These practices involve concealing or obscuring material information from users, such as
+*Hidden costs reveal unexpected fees only at checkout, a practice employed by ticketing platforms
+*Drip pricing advertises only part of a product's total price initially and then imposes other mandatory charges later<ref name=":0" />
+*Checking a box by default that installs [[Bloatware|potentially-unwanted software]], such as an "anti-virus" that's actually [[spyware]] or a [[wikipedia:Cryptocurrency#Mining|crypto-miner]]
 ===Social proof and urgency===
+{{Main|Fear of missing out}}
 These patterns exploit social influence and time pressure to manipulate decisions. False activity messages misrepresent site activity or product popularity. False scarcity creates pressure to buy immediately by claiming limited inventory. Baseless countdown timers display fake countdown clocks that reset when expired.
+===False choice===
+This category includes any form of providing 2 or more "options" or "choices" to the user (each one with pros and cons), but only one or a few of them are reasonable and/or pragmatic. A more specific subset of this category, consists on providing extremely coarse ("''[[wikipedia:False_dilemma|all or nothing]]''") choices. Examples:
+*[[Web cookie|Cookie]] prompts where the only choices are "Accept all" and "Reject all". If the user clicks "Reject", they have to login everytime they switch to a different page, and none of their settings/preferences are saved. If the user clicks "Accept", they get tracked by several third-parties.
+*[[Android]] doesn't consider <code>[https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#INTERNET INTERNET]</code> as a "[https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/permissions/overview#runtime dangerous]" permission, so users can only enable or disable internet access for all apps. In contrast, [[GrapheneOS]] supports setting internet-access on a per-app basis. There's speculation that [[Google]] hasn't implemented this granularity because it would decrease their ad-revenue, as users could simply block internet for any app with ads while still having internet on the apps they care about.<ref>[[Talk:Android data collection#3p section]]</ref> See also [[Google#Banning domain-blockers from Play Store]].
+Like many other types of dark patterns, this one is [[malicious compliance]], as they pretend to "care about the user's privacy" by giving them choices, but the choices are deliberately set-up to force users to choose the ones that benefit the company at the expense of the user.
 ==Mind tricks and business incentives==
@@ Line 70: / Line 82: @@
 ==Impact on consumers and businesses==
-''Editor note: This entire section reads as LLM.''
 ===Consumer harms===
-Dark patterns create multiple forms of harm for consumers, ranging from financial losses to privacy violations and emotional distress. Privacy harms occur when users are manipulated into sharing more personal data than they intended. Emotional and psychological harms include frustration, stress, and feelings of betrayal.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":11" />
+A dark pattern is harmful to consumers in many ways, often leading to financial loss, violations of privacy, and emotional distress.
-Vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected. "People with low digital literacy, cognitive impairments, or disabilities often struggle to recognize manipulative designs."
+Dark patterns could manipulate consumers financially by faking urgency, importance, scarcity, and sales to trick them into making purchases they might not have made if they were able to make a properly informed decision.
-===Business implications===
+They could also be used violate the consumers privacy by hiding information on what data a service collects and how that data is used, and hiding or excluding options to stop data collection or delete already collected data.
-While dark patterns may deliver short-term benefits, they often create long-term risks for businesses. The erosion of consumer trust can have lasting negative impacts on customer retention and brand reputation. Businesses also face increasing regulatory risks as enforcement actions become more common and severe.<ref name=":0" />
+The above examples of how consumers may be affected are often combined with or directly involve dark patterns that cause emotional distress, often attempting to frustrate the consumer enough to accept what patterns are being used against them, and stop looking for any in-site settings or other methods to bypass the patterns.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":11" />
+The most vulnerable consumers are those who are unfamiliar with computers and the internet, and those with mental or physical disabilities that impair them from either recognizing dark patterns or avoiding them if possible.
+===Impact on businesses===
+Dark patterns are often effective enough to be used by a wide range of businesses regardless of how successful they are. Even when consumers discover that a service they use contains dark patterns, they're highly unlikely to stop using the service or inform other users which in turn makes it highly unlikely a business will stop using dark patterns. Despite consumer backlash being unlikely to lead to any change, many dark patterns violate consumer protection laws and could lead to heavy lawsuits against businesses which are much more effective.<ref name=":0" />
 ==Detection, avoidance and mitigation==
@@ Line 97: / Line 114: @@
 ==Gallery==
 Examples of dark patterns, with notes.
-<gallery style="text-align:left" widths=250px>
+===[[Carly]]===
+<gallery style="text-align:left" widths="250px">
 File:MyCarly website cookies dark pattern.png|alt=An example of MyCarly.com manipulating the user by minimizing the appearance of the "More" option while emphasizing only the "Accept" button.|An example of manipulating the user by minimizing the noticeability of the "More" option while emphasizing only the "Accept" button.
-File:MyCarly website cookies 1.png|alt=Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.|Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.
+File:MyCarly website cookies 1.png|Diving deeper shows Marketing enabled by default and using a color to match the font text. The "Deny" option is dark text and uses a light-gray color border that is both harder to see and generally associated with denial of action.
-File:MyCarly website cookies 2.png|alt=Mixpanel is labeled as "essential", but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation that it's a tracker. MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker is still a tracker. Google Tag Manager is also enabled by default, with the same issue as the previous image.|Mixpanel is labeled as "essential", but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation that it's a tracker. MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker is still a tracker. Google Tag Manager is also enabled by default, with the same issue as the previous image.
+File:MyCarly website cookies 2.png|Mixpanel is labeled as "essential", but hidden within the collapsed section is an explanation that it's a tracker. MyCarly may genuinely consider it necessary, but a tracker is still a tracker. Google Tag Manager is also enabled by default, with the same issue as the previous image.
+</gallery>
+===[[The Economist]]===
+<gallery style="text-align:left" widths="250px">
+File:The Economist website cookies dark pattern.png|The message that appears on user's visit to the website. Cookie management is located closely above the bright Continue button.
+File:The Economist website cookies.png|"Do not sell or share" is enabled by default, but comes with a disclaimer. (See file page for further notes.)
 </gallery>