A study on online companies employing dark patterns. Dark patterns are clever tricks built into apps and websites to encourage you to do things you may not necessarily want to do, for the gain of the companies.
How ironic that the article talks about dark patterns but as soon as you visit the webpage you get a cookie disclaimer whose reject “button” is small text tucked away in the top right of the modal.
Those modals are themselves a dark pattern.
The law they respond to was one that was intended to simply get website to stop using tracking cookies. Just don’t do it unless absolutely necessary. It’s just uncalled for bad practice.
But it is so vanishingly rare for ANY company/site to be well-behaved that now, the modals are ubiquitous. So common that people desensitize to them. It’s just Ferengi trying to scam you every way you look.
I bet most of them don’t even work.
For anyone wondering, yes Terms and Conditions are a dark pattern when they’re mapped directly onto the enter key.
