The Ministry of Consumer Affairs has released a discussion paper proposing new guidelines to combat the spread of so-called shady patterns – to trick customers into doing something they did not originally intend to do, or to coerce them into certain actions.
Kailash Nadh, CTO of India’s largest stockbroker ZerodhaThese dark patterns, or predatory practices that border on exploitation, have been a bane to consumer technology and services. “I’m excited to see a human-centered legal framework emerging that recognizes this threat. After net neutrality, this is perhaps the first technology policy that I fully and wholeheartedly agree with,” he said.
A Zomato spokesperson said reducing patterns that are deceptive or misleading to consumers could help shape a safe and trusted online environment.
Dark patterns include falsely expressing or implying a sense of urgency or scarcity to trick a user into making an immediate purchase, such as when an online purchasing site falsely shows that very few items remain. a product or seats on an airplane are left.
Basket sneaking involves adding additional items such as products, services and charity/donation payments at the time of checkout from a platform without user consent so that the total amount payable by the user exceeds the amount payable for the products/services chosen by the user (see graph).
Regulators in the EU, US and UK have cracked down on such unfair practices.
