By Shreya Negi

After identifying three more dark patterns existing in the ad ecosystem, the Department of Consumer Affairs will be releasing the final guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns this week, told Nidhi Khare, Chief Commissioner, Central Consumer Protection Authority to BestMediaInfo.com.

It was a few months back, on September 8, 2023, that the Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) published the draft guidelines for prevention and regulation of dark patterns.

Khare said that in the past one year, what the CCPA has witnessed is a lot of Generative AI-led advertisements as well as a rise in the earlier drafted dark patterns.

“When we actually started examining advertisements that have come out in the year so far, for unfair trade practices, we found out that there are certain dark patterns, which is why we came up with a draft guideline on the same that comprised eight such patterns. But when we shared the documents with the stakeholders, three more were added to the list,” she said.

Elaborating on the three additional dark patterns, Khare shared the example that when an individual is trying to book an air ticket, it is very often that one is flooded with pop-ups which do not allow him/her to book the ticket without saying yes to say for example an insurance cover which is completely different from what the person was trying to do. However, when such pop-ups actually come on screen with the option of choosing yes or no, in the process, the consumer ends up feeling guilty for choosing no.

Another pattern that the Ministry has noticed is that of a consumer not being able to purchase a subscription, say for example X without subscribing to Y as they cannot be directed to the payment page without doing so and hence, what happens in a lot of cases is that consumers make an assumption that Subscription Y is free, which is not the case, and end up paying for the both of them as it is very difficult to go back and unselect the purchasing of Subscription Y and thereby manipulating the consumer’s decision.

Read the full story https://bestmediainfo.com/2023/11/final-guidelines-for-prevention-regulation-of-dark-patterns-to-come-out-this-week-nidhi-khare