{"id":36145,"date":"2023-06-01T10:30:47","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T05:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=36145"},"modified":"2025-04-21T15:39:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T10:09:36","slug":"centre-to-issue-norms-against-dark-patterns-in-online-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/centre-to-issue-norms-against-dark-patterns-in-online-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"Centre to issue norms against \u2018dark patterns\u2019 in online ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are Dark Patterns?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Some major types of Dark Patterns:<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How do companies use dark patterns?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What do users stand to lose because of dark patterns?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The Union Consumer Affairs Ministry is concerned about the increasing dark patterns of misleading advertisements that use tactics like false urgency, confirm-shaming, forced action, subscription traps, and nagging.<\/li>\n<li>To tackle this issue, they plan to release clear guidelines to regulate these practices.<\/li>\n<li>The ministry has also urged the consumers to flag such manipulative online practices on the National Consumer Helpline by calling \u20181915\u2019 or through a WhatsApp message to 8800001915.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are Dark Patterns?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Dark patterns refer to <strong>deceptive design techniques<\/strong> used in user interfaces to manipulate or deceive users into taking certain actions or making specific choices online.<\/li>\n<li>Such patterns are unethical user interface designs that deliberately make Internet experience harder or even exploit the users.<\/li>\n<li>These patterns exploit <u>cognitive biases and behavioural tendencies<\/u> to trick or mislead users, often for the benefit of the platform or business implementing them.<\/li>\n<li>These tricks can include creating a <u>false sense of urgency, making people feel bad for not doing something, forcing them to take certain actions, trapping them into subscriptions, or constantly bothering them<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Some major types of Dark Patterns<\/strong>:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Urgency:<\/strong> This tactic creates a sense of urgency or scarcity to pressure consumers into making a purchase or taking an action.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Basket Sneaking<\/strong>: Websites or apps use dark patterns to add additional products or services to the shopping cart without user consent.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Confirm Shaming<\/strong>: It involves guilt as a way to make consumers adhere. It criticizes or attack consumers for not conforming to a particular belief or viewpoint.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Forced Action<\/strong>: This involves forcing consumers into taking an action they may not want to take, such as signing up for a service in order to access content.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nagging:<\/strong> It refers to persistent, repetitive and annoyingly constant criticism, complaints, requests for action.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Subscription Traps<\/strong>: This tactic makes it easy for consumers to sign up for a service but difficult for them to cancel it, often by hiding the cancellation option or requiring multiple steps.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Interface Interference<\/strong>: This tactic involves making it difficult for consumers to take certain actions, such as canceling a subscription or deleting an account.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bait and Switch<\/strong>: This involves advertising one product or service but delivering another, often of lower quality.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Hidden Costs<\/strong>: This tactic involves hiding additional costs from consumers until they are already committed to making a purchase.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Disguised Ads<\/strong>: Disguised ads are advertisements that are designed to look like other types of content, such as news articles or user-generated content.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How do companies use dark patterns?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Social media companies and Big Tech firms such as Apple, Amazon, Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Google use dark or deceptive patterns to downgrade the user experience to their advantage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Amazon<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It came under fire in the EU for its confusing, multi-step cancellation process for the Amazon Prime subscription.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google-owned YouTube<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>It nudges users to sign up for YouTube Premium with pop-ups, obscuring the final seconds of a video with thumbnails of other videos.\n<ul>\n<li>This is being viewed as a way of disrupting what should have been an otherwise smooth user experience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>LinkedIn<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>LinkedIn users often receive unsolicited, sponsored messages from influencers.<\/li>\n<li>Disabling this option is a difficult process with multiple steps that requires users to be familiar with the platform controls.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What do users stand to lose because of dark patterns?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lack of Transparency<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Dark patterns can obscure important information, making it difficult for users to fully understand the implications of their actions.<\/li>\n<li>This can lead to uninformed decision-making and potential financial or privacy risks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Reduced Autonomy<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>It manipulates user behaviour, limiting their freedom of choice.<\/li>\n<li>Users may feel coerced or pressured into making decisions they wouldn&#8217;t have otherwise made, leading to buyer&#8217;s remorse or dissatisfaction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Privacy Concerns<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Some dark patterns may manipulate users into sharing more personal data than they intended or agreeing to privacy settings that compromise their confidentiality.<\/li>\n<li>This can have implications for data security and expose users to potential privacy breaches.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Negative User Experience<\/strong>:\n<ul>\n<li>Dark patterns often create frustrating and confusing experiences for users.<\/li>\n<li>They may feel deceived or manipulated, leading to a loss of trust in the platform or brand and a diminished overall user experience.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What is basket sneaking?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Sneaking products into users&#8217; shopping baskets is a dark pattern that tricks people into purchasing more than they intended to do. For this very reason, the European Commission illegalized this design pattern under the consumer rights directive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>What is confirm shaming?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Confirm shaming is a term that refers to a manipulative tactic used in user interface (UI) design or online interactions. It involves using guilt or social pressure to influence a user&#8217;s decision when presented with a choice, particularly when dealing with consent or privacy-related options.\u00a0In the context of online interactions, confirm shaming typically occurs when a website or application presents a user with a choice, such as opting out of email subscriptions, declining to provide personal information, or refusing to consent to terms and conditions. Instead of simply providing a straightforward option to decline or opt-out, confirm shaming employs emotionally manipulative language or design elements to make the user feel guilty or embarrassed for choosing not to comply.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/new-guidelines-soon-against-dark-patterns-in-e-commerce\/article67027787.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Centre to issue norms against \u2018dark patterns\u2019 in online ads<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/pib.gov.in\/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1932105\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>PIB<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/technology\/dark-patterns-on-the-internet-how-companies-are-tricking-its-users\/article66296690.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>The Hindu<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dark patterns are used to manipulate users into taking certain actions online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}