Dark Pattern Sales Deemed ‘Cybercrime’

GS Paper III Internal security

Context:

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has asked Airline Companies to rectify their websites, following a series of complaints regarding practices by airlines and online travel agents that trick consumers into making unintended purchases.

Most complaints are related to airlines showing all available seats as paid when purchasing a ticket, and incidents of passengers being denied boarding despite a valid ticket.
Some of these practices amounted to “dark patterns,” where the user interface of websites is designed to dupe consumers.

A dark pattern is one where an entity nudges consumers to buy products they didn’t intend to, which is an unfair trading practice and can constitute a cybercrime.
It is a digital design interface used to manipulate customer behavior.
These forms of dark patterns have been defined in the draft guidelines of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, which was released on September 7 to seek public comments for a period of 30 days (Refer Table).

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.
For Example: In social media, LinkedIn users often receive unsolicited, sponsored messages from influencers. Disabling this option is a difficult process with multiple steps that requires users to be familiar with the platform controls.

Form Of Dark Patterns

False Urgency: It means falsely stating or implying a sense of urgency or scarcity to mislead a user into making an immediate purchase.
Basket sneaking: It is the inclusion of additional items such as products, services, payments to charity/donations at the time of checkout, without the consent of the user.
Interface interference: It means a design element that manipulates the user interface in ways that highlight certain specific information, and obscures other relevant information.
Bait and Switch: It means advertising a particular outcome based on the user’s action but deceptively serving an alternate outcome.
Drip pricing: It means a practice whereby elements of prices are not revealed upfront or surreptitiously within the user experience; and/or other such practices.
Other forms: Forced action,Subscription trap,Confirm shaming, Disguised advertising and Nagging.

Department of Consumer Affairs summoned cab and two-wheeler aggregators to come clean on their charges and algorithms, as consumer angst and frustration with these services rose to alarming levels.
The Department also formed a consultation group to address the issue of fake online reviews.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), has been addressing such issues through its existing code on misleading ads.
The ASCI code applies across media, including online advertising (including companies’ own websites, pages and handles).

Source: The Hindu