The U.S. FTC, along with two other international consumer protection networks, announced on Thursday the results of a study into the use of “dark patterns” – or manipulative design techniques – that can put users’ privacy at risk or push them to buy products or services or take other actions they otherwise wouldn’t have. TechCrunch:
In an analysis of 642 websites and apps offering subscription services, the study found that the majority (nearly 76%) used at least one dark pattern and nearly 67% used more than one. Dark patterns refer to a range of design techniques that can subtly encourage users to take some sort of action or put their privacy at risk. They’re particularly popular among subscription websites and apps and have been an area of focus for the FTC in previous years. For instance, the FTC sued dating app giant Match for fraudulent practices, which included making it difficult to cancel a subscription through its use of dark patterns.
[…] The new report published Thursday dives into the many types of dark patterns like sneaking, obstruction, nagging, forced action, social proof and others. Sneaking was among the most common dark patterns encountered in the study, referring to the inability to turn off the auto-renewal of subscriptions during the sign-up and purchase process. Eighty-one percent of sites and apps studied used this technique to ensure their subscriptions were renewed automatically. In 70% of cases, the subscription providers didn’t provide information on how to cancel a subscription, and 67% failed to provide the date by which a consumer needed to cancel in order to not be charged again.
I’m shocked!
/s
Great site for rating and ranking mobile games by dark pattern presence.
There are a few pieces of software I use (regularly) that would continue to get money from me if they followed the old model of paying for major versions. (pay for v1, get v 1.1-1.9) with v2 being the next “big” update that you’d have to pay an upgrade fee (smaller than a new purchase) to continue on the train.
But they switched to subscription model, and lost me as an “active” customer.
YNAB is the big one I use at least weekly, sometimes daily. I am on YNAB4 until it will no longer function because I’m not paying them a monthly fee to use that product. I would have GLADLY paid for major updates/changes even if it equaled the subscription in the end. But each of those purchases would be a decision I made on whether the change had enough value for me.
Subscriptions allow them to not strive for large enough improvements to warrant a version update / upgrade fee. They just run along with little or no useful changes (IMHO).
I know it’s really low hanging fruit, but a couple of weeks back, on a whim, I decided to play Candy Crush for the first time in probably ten years. For the first time since I was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago, in fact.
And boy oh boy, is that shit eye-opening when you’re playing with a greater understanding of what makes an ADHD brain tick.
The speed at which you can tick through the screens to get to playing, the satisfying way the haptics tap when you make a match, the constancy of advertising power ups. The game is a masterpiece in addictive design, working just on the right side of being compulsive to play.
Fortunately for me, being aware of this stuff means I’m not tempted to spend any money on it. As soon as I’m out of lives I shut it down. But I’m still susceptible to its charms all the same, and it’s kinda scary how easy it is.
Evil UX
What’s it called when a subscription confirms that you cancelled and then just keeps charging you anyway, and provides no customer support so you have to call your bank and charge back 4 months of payments? Because Bumble did that to me 2 years ago.
I would call that fraud. lol.
Outright theft?
DirecTV did that to my dad years ago. He called to cancel but they sat on it for 4 months and gave us service but didn’t stop sending bills. He just just stopped paying them until they started threatening legal action so he had to keep fighting them. Eventually they gave up.
Dark patterns are basically best practices at this point
I wouldn’t say “best practices”, though “standard operating procedure” might be more the case.
Depends what the definition of “best” is.
In capitalism “best” is the most profit for the least time and effort.
And yet the article doesn’t mention whether they’re going to do anything about it. I’m guessing nothing, based on this:
This isn’t the first time the FTC has examined the use of dark patterns. In 2022, it also authored a report that detailed a range of dark patterns, but that wasn’t limited to only subscription websites and apps. Instead, the older report looked at dark patterns across industries, including e-commerce and children’s apps, as well as different types of dark patterns, like those used in cookie consent banners and more.
like those used in cookie consent banners
Amazing how big some sites are and yet they still have the shadiest cookie banners. Individually clicking categories to disable, having to scroll to save instead of being tricked by the “accept all” that gets highlighted when you start disabling consent categories…
Individually clicking categories to disable
Not legal in EU, you can report this to appropriate department. What I hate is if I have VPN enabled I will get privacy banners in Google sites but if I don’t then Google will collect all data because I am not in EU.
So, a dark pattern is a design that tries to trick the user into something. But what is the word for “knowing what the user wants, blatantly ignoring it and imposing the companies will anyway”?
Example: I think YouTube shorts are a terrible format, and I find them generally irritating. So I click the X on the element in YouTube that has a bunch of side scrolling cards, where each card is one of these shorts. YouTube informs me it will hide them for 30 days and then they’ll be back.
Another example, Windows Update. I’ve set all the group policy settings so it should never restart and update without me triggering it. But, if I allow it to download the update, then damn my group policy settings, it is going to apply that update and restart whenever it wants.
Can you block updates via hosts file?
YouTube have been doing that sort of thing for years though. Do you remember the push to have everyone switch to a Google+ account with a real name attached?
They’d ask if you wanted to do the aforementioned, and if you said no, they responded “OK we’ll ask again later.”
No “Never ask me this again.”, just the implicit “f–k you, we’re going to pester you with this over and over again until you sign up.”
After they got enough sign-ups they quit asking. And then Google+ went down the Swanee, so they relented and decided that maybe it was OK for people to have pseudonymous accounts after all. It only took years for that to happen.
Can’t see how short-form content is going to fail in the same way, so there’ll be nothing here to teach them the lesson again.
It’s a language game too. Target recently changed their credit card reader screen - it’s been annoying about their rewards program for a while, but before it was “skip” to pass the screen, now the button is “not now”. Skip is more of a “no” than “not now”. Either way, though, they’re shoving their easier shopper tracking down everyone’s throats.
Have you tried blocking them with uBlock Origin?
Hmm I haven’t tried this. Thanks for the suggestion.
It works wonders. I’ve blocked so much crap on YT. Everything including the shopping ads, the little white watch more popus, the related video popups, and whatever else I’ve forgotten about.
My home feed is nothing but actual videos I can watch - no shorts, catagories, special promotions or other junk.
I also set my bookmark to the subscriptions page, that way I always start there. No need to “ring that bell” when all the latest stuff I’ve subscribed to is the first I see.
