Govt seeks public feedback on draft guidelines for dark patterns

Dark patterns are practices or patterns on UI/UX interactions on any platform designed to mislead or trick users

In a bid to protect consumers from deceptive and misleading practices, the Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India, has sought public comments on draft guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns.

These guidelines define dark patterns as any practices or deceptive design patterns using UI/UX (user interface/user experience) interactions on any platform; designed to mislead or trick users into doing something they originally did not intend or want to do.

"The draft guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns have been framed after detailed deliberations with all stakeholders, including e-commerce platforms, law firms, government and Voluntary Consumer Organisations (VCOs)," stated a release from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.

As many as ten such patterns have been identified in the guidelines, including:

   1. False urgency, where a platform may falsely state or imply a sense of scarcity so as to mislead a user into making an immediate purchase

   2. Basket sneaking, which means the inclusion of additional items such as products, services, or payments to charity/donation at the time of checkout from a platform, without the consent of a user

   3. Confirm shaming, which is done by using a phrase, video, audio, or any other means to create a sense of fear, shame, ridicule, or guilt in the mind of the user, so as to nudge them to act in a certain way that results in the user purchasing a product or service

   4. Forced action, which means forcing a user into taking an action that would require them to buy any additional goods, or subscribe or sign up for an unrelated service, in order to buy or subscribe to the product or service originally intended by the user

   5. Subscription trap, which means making the process of cancellation of a paid subscription impossible or making it a complex and lengthy process

   6. Interface interference, which refers to a design element that manipulates the user interface in ways that (a) highlight certain specific information and (b) obscure other relevant information

   7. Bait and switch, which refers to the practice of advertising a particular outcome based on a user’s action but deceptively serving an alternate outcome

   8. Drip pricing, where elements of prices are not revealed upfront

   9. Disguised advertisement, meaning a practice of masking advertisements as other types of content

  10. Nagging, which refers to a pattern where users face an overload of information unrelated to the purchase of goods or services

"These guidelines would be made applicable to all persons and online platforms, including sellers and advertisers," the release stated.

The window for public comments and feedback is open until October 5, 2023.