Officials from the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission say that the new guidelines are not popular among the public and the officials.
Despite government guidelines to regulate dark patterns, they are still used in several online platforms. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued “Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023,” to prevent and regulate 13 specified dark patterns in online platforms with effect from Nov.30, 2023.
According to the guidelines, dark patterns mean any practices or deceptive design patterns using user interface/user experience (UI/UX) interactions on any platform, designed to mislead or trick users to do something they originally did not intend or want to do. These patterns can influence consumers’ decision making thereby violating consumer rights. The guidelines apply to all platforms offering goods or services in India, advertisers and sellers. They prohibit any person, including any platform from engaging in any dark pattern practice.
Dark patterns fall under the category of “unfair trade practices” defined under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, according to which non-compliance to the directions of the CCPA “shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with fine which may extend to Rs. 20 lakhs, or with both.”
Vijay Kumar, Registrar, Karnataka State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (KSCDRC) said that he was unaware of the guidelines. “We have not received any complaints in this regard. Since this is a new guideline, public as well as the officials are not really aware. However, these guidelines are necessary as many online platforms use several tricks for their business,” he said.
“Since the CCPA is a central authority established under Section 10 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, it is the authorised body to issue punishments in cases of dark patterns. However, CCPA has given power to Deputy Commissioners or District Collectors at the district levels to take cases and submit the investigation report to it,” he added.
However, the Judicial Head Munsiff, Bengaluru Deputy Commissioner Office, said that they have not received any complaints under the guidelines.
Arya, a college student shared her experience of being tricked by the pattern of “basket sneaking” in an e-commerce portal of eyewear. She said, “When I was purchasing an eyeglass, the application added a gold membership service at the time of checkout without my consent.” She added, “I wonder why I did not stop to think that it was the application, not me who added an item to my cart.” However, she was unaware of the guidelines.
Sharon, a 24-year-old, said that he has seen dark patterns in several online platforms. “When I buy movie tickets online, I have noticed that though the seats are shown sold, they are actually vacant almost all the time.” By this pattern of “false urgency,” he was forced to buy tickets online, especially for group bookings.
He added, “When the online platforms show ‘hurry, limited stock,’ or ‘the sale is going to end in a few minutes,’ I end up buying things which I don’t want. I would be confused when I see messages like these and click on the ‘buy now’ button immediately.” He was also not aware of the guidelines.
Anson.C.Thomas, a UI/ Front End Developer, explained that dark patterns work by tricking the user to click on misleading or visually deceptive things that appear on the user’s screen and redirecting them to an unrelated page. These pages are decided by the backend developer who has developed the dark patterns. However, when clicked on dark patterns in unsafe websites, the user might lose data and can even lose control over their devices.
Dr. Nagaraja. G.S, Professor and Associate Dean, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, R. V. College of Engineering, Bengaluru said that there is threat of data loss when online platforms use dark patterns. “Data loss, privacy, non-reliability, loss of money and a lack of quality in product delivery are some of the concerns with dark patterns.”
