“Click to verify your free trial and subscription.”  Dark patterns are online designs to fool a person into buying items or giving up privacy. These deceptions include disguised ads, hiding junk fees, difficult to cancel subscriptions, pre-checked boxes, hard-to-find disclosures, and tricks to get you to share personal data.

A recent Federal Trade Commission study reported that companies are using more and more sophisticated practices to trick and trap consumers. The study “examined how dark patterns can obscure, subvert, or impair consumer choice and decision-making and may violate the law.”  The report highlighted four digital dark pattern tactics:

1. Disguised ads to mislead consumers. These deceptive ads include promotional information designed to look like independent, editorial content.  Comparison shopping sites claiming to be neutral, but rank companies based on advertising fees paid. Countdown timers are used to get consumers to believe they only have a limited time to purchase an item.

• Difficult to cancel subscriptions or charges. Companies attempt to trick consumers into buying items.  A deceptive subscription seller may persist with ongoing charges for an item a person never intended to buy. The company will likely make it very difficult to cancel free trials and subscription plans. Consumers may be required to navigate a confusing and lengthy cancellation website path. As they click through several pages of promotions and links, they may be directed away from the cancellation path. 

• Hidden key terms, junk fees.  Some dark patterns hide key product limitations among extensive terms of service documents, which may also conceal junk fees. Companies advertise only part of the total price to lure consumers; other mandatory charges are not mentioned until late in the buying process.

• Personal data sharing trickery.  Presented as a choice for privacy settings or sharing data, a website will steer consumers to an option that gives away personal information. In one situation, a company used default settings to collect and share a person’s viewing activity with third parties; consumers were only provided a brief notice that could easily be missed.

Awareness of these tricks can help consumers avoid being scammed.  Victims of these deceptive tactics may file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

For additional information on dark patterns, click here:

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Teaching Suggestions

• Have students talk to others to learn about their experiences with deceptive online buying.
• Have students create a visual summary (poster or slide presentation) to warn consumers of dark patterns.

Discussion Questions 

1. What are possible examples of the tactics discussed in the article that might be used to deceive consumers?
2. Describe actions a person might take to avoid deceptive online marketing tactics.