What Are Dark Patterns? Govt’s Advisory Makes E-Commerce Transparency A Priority

The government has noticed the practice of 'Dark Pattern' being run by some e-commerce companies and has declared war on the practice.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued an advisory to all e-commerce platforms to take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms do not engage in deceptive and unfair trade practices which are in the nature of dark patterns.

But What Are Dark Patterns?

Dark patterns are manipulative tricks used by a company to convince you to buy a higher priced product or service than you otherwise would have.

Consumers often suffer financial losses due to dark patterns which result in them taking action they may not want to take, like signing up for a service in order to access content.

The government has issued notices to e-commerce firms in some cases where these firms have been found violating the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns.

"All e-commerce platforms are therefore advised to refrain from deploying deceptive design interfaces that mislead consumers or manipulate their decision-making," said the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) in a statement.

"All e-commerce platforms have been advised to conduct self-audits to identify dark patterns, within 3 months of the issue of the advisory, and take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms are free from such dark patterns. The e-commerce platforms, based on the self-audit reports, have also encouraged to give self-declarations that their platform is not indulging in any dark patterns," it added.

Among the various types of dark patterns are false urgencies, basket sneaking, subscription traps, confirm shaming, forced action, nagging, bait and switch, disguised ads and more.

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