How Online ‘Dark Patterns' Deceive Us On The Daily: ASCI CEO Explains

Imagine you're ordering food online, selecting multiple items and knowing that your total order cost comes to around Rs 300. Feeling elated, you move to the checkout only to realise that the total order cost has now gone over Rs 500. Why does this happen? 

An additional delivery charge, packaging charge, heavy surge charge, rain charge and whatnot often gets added to your final order. This pattern is not only limited to food apps, but also applies to almost every other website where you are inadvertently made to pay, without your complete knowledge. This impinges on your right to full information. What is it called and how does it impact you? Let's find out.

Online Deceptive Design Patterns

What you just read is an example of online deceptive design patterns, commonly known as "dark patterns". This is an umbrella term that refers to a variety of practices commonly found in online user interfaces that lead consumers to make choices that often are not in their best interests. 

Speaking to TheCore, Manisha Kapoor, CEO and secretary general, of ASCI (Advertising Standards Council of India) explained, "Dark patterns are essentially online designs or navigation mechanisms through which consumer choices online are determined. These UI/UX design principles, essentially steer consumers to choices, that may not be what they actually want to do, or may be detrimental to their interests. That's when these are called commonly dark patterns."

Types of Dark Patterns

Elaborating on the scale of this form of deceptive advertising, Kapoor said that she hasn't come across a single person who's not encountered these patterns. Dark patterns encompass a wide range of manipulative practices. Some major types of dark patterns, according to ASCI are:

• Urgency: This tactic tends to pressure consumers into making a purchase or taking an action.
• Basket Sneaking: Additional products or services are added to the shopping cart without the user's consent. 
• Confirm Shaming: It invokes guilt in consumers for not conforming to a particular belief or viewpoint. Kapoor shared an example of this pattern, which is not advertising-related. "Let's say you're on a website that is talking about health. It asks you to sign up for a newsletter and gives two options, "Yes, I want to be healthy"; and "No, I don't want to be healthy." Just because I don't sign up for your newsletter doesn't mean I don't want to be healthy, right? So you are actually guilting me or shaming me that if I say no to you, that is unacceptable. This is one of the examples, which may not feature in ads, but nonetheless, are patterns that need to be avoided. 
• Forced Action: Consumers are forced into taking an action they may not want to take, like signing up for a service in order to access content.
• Nagging: It refers to persistent, repetitive and annoyingly constant criticism, complaints, and requests for action. 
• Subscription Traps: This tactic makes it easy for consumers to sign up for a service but intentionally challenging for them to cancel it. This is often done by hiding the cancellation option, or by making the cancellation process lengthy by involving multiple steps. 
• Interface Interference: This tactic involves making it difficult for consumers to take certain actions, such as canceling a subscription or deleting an account.
• Bait and Switch: This is when the delivered product is different or has lower quality than what was advertised.
• Hidden Costs: These are additional costs that are hidden from consumers until they are already committed to making a purchase.
• Disguised Ads: Disguised ads are advertisements that are designed to look like other types of content, such as news articles or user-generated content. According to Kapoor, the Department of Consumer Affairs, as well as ASCI, have identified influencer posts as potentially disguised advertising.  

In addition to this, there is also the issue of consumer reviews. "The consumer has a right to know whether a particular reviewer was incentivized or paid for. Because all of us base so much of our online purchase decisions, and choices on the reviews that we see," Kapoor said. "I think this is only an evolving field.

There certainly would be newer kinds of patterns that come up. These are just various examples of how consumer interests or their information is being suppressed, being put at a lower priority versus the advertiser's interest. So there needs to be a balance between the interests of the advertiser and the interest of the consumer. That is what is compromised through these kinds of practices."

The end goal of ‘Dark Patterns'

The end goal of dark patterns revolves around influencing consumer behaviour to benefit businesses financially. These tactics aim to compel individuals to make purchases they wouldn't have made otherwise, or to buy more of a product/service than they originally intended.

Additionally, dark patterns seek to make consumers spend more money or time on a purchase/service than desired or to extract more personal data than necessary. It's important to note that dark patterns extend beyond advertising, with examples including manipulating users through guilt to opt for something they wouldn't have chosen otherwise. 

Can marketplaces/platforms be held responsible?

ASCI published new guidelines for ‘Online Deceptive Design Patterns in Advertising', to empower businesses, designers, and stakeholders to create user-centric experiences alongside promoting ethical standards in the digital landscape on June 15.

These guidelines will be applicable from September 1, 2023. A larger task force is to be formed by ASCI to look at manipulative design patterns beyond advertising with the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Speaking on the enforcement of guidelines, Kapoor said, "Marketplaces can't completely shrug off their responsibility by simply saying that we are just a marketplace and the pricing is put either by the restaurant or reseller. I think the platform has a lot of choice in how the pricing is entered.

So they can't completely say that we are not the advertiser when a lot of times, consumers actually go to these platforms to buy things and they don't know who the reseller is. They have a relationship with the platform as that is where the financial details are stored. So they're pretty much part of that ecosystem and need to play their share of responsibility."