What are Dark Patterns?

About Dark Patterns:

• Dark patterns, also known as deceptive patterns, are deliberate design tactics that trick online users into making choices that aren’t always in their best interest.
• They are designed to mislead users to do something they originally did not intend or want to do.
• At their core, dark patterns exploit cognitive biases. They leverage the way our brains process information to nudge us toward specific decisions, often against our best interests.
• Dark patterns take many forms, and different sources may categorize them in various ways.
• Each is designed to manipulate users into making choices that benefit the company rather than the user.
• These deceptive design tactics can pop up across websites, forms, emails, and apps.
• The Central Consumer Protection Authority notified the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns in 2023 and specified 13 dark patterns, namely:
  • False urgency, Basket Sneaking, Confirm shaming, forced action, Subscription trap, Interface Interference, Bait and switch, Drip Pricing, Disguised Advertisements and Nagging, Trick Wording, Saas Billing and Rogue Malwares.
• For example, drip pricing is when extra costs appear after the user has started the purchase process.
• False urgency: Dark patterns sometimes invent deadlines or stock shortages, sometimes known as scarcity cues, to exploit a fear of missing out, pressuring users into quick decisions without taking the time to think through the purchase.
• Basket Sneaking: This is when extra products or services are added to a user’s shopping cart without their explicit consent.
• Subscription Trap: This dark pattern is the common case of making it substantially harder to cancel a subscription than it was to start the subscription in the first place.