Study of Over 11,000 Online Stores Finds 'Dark Patterns' on 1,254 sites (zdnet.com) 42
A large-scale academic study that analyzed more than 53,000 product pages on more than 11,000 online stores found widespread use of user interface "dark patterns" -- practices meant to mislead customers into making purchases based on false or misleading information. from a report: The study -- presented last week at the ACM CSCW 2019 conference -- found 1,818 instances of dark patterns present on 1,254 of the ~11K shopping websites (~11.1%) researchers scanned. "Shopping websites that were more popular, according to Alexa rankings, were more likely to feature dark patterns," researchers said. But while the vast majority of UI dark patterns were meant to trick users into subscribing to newsletters or allowing broad data collection, some dark patterns were downright foul, trying to mislead users into making additional purchases, either by sneaking products into shopping carts or tricking users into believing products were about to sell out. Of these, the research team found 234 instances, deployed across 183 websites.
But they drive conversion! (Score:2)
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Been going on long before the internet or even computers:
charlatan /SHärldn,SHärltn/
noun
a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill; a fraud.
con man /kän man/
noun INFORMAL
noun: con man; plural noun: con men; noun: conman; plural noun: conmen; noun: con-man; plural noun: con-men
a man who cheats or tricks someone by gaining their trust and persuading them to believe something that is not true.
Etc.
WTF is this Dark Patterns crap?
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> If you're good at it, its called marketing...
There's logos marketing which tries to convince you to buy a product with a good story about its usefulness. This I don't mind.
Three's eros marketing which tries to trigger your base instincts - hot babes in catalogs, the slow-motion oozing drip of caramel on chocolate, etc.
Then there's fear-based marketing - you can think of a hundred examples.
I look for the last two types as an indication that the product or company is probably crappy. That's a heuristic
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Marketing, or deception? Just the other week, on a local supermarket shelf:
€ 1.82 __ € 1.88
A ______ B
A and B essentially the same item, same weight etc. I decided to pick what looked like the cheaper one (A). But a closer read of the price tag revealed that € 1.82 referred to B, and the € 1.88 tag referred to A. People not looking carefully & just thinking they'd grab the cheaper item, would pay the higher price at checkout.
Maybe the above was a genuine mistake, who knows
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charlatan /SHärldn,SHärltn/
noun
a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill; a fraud.
con man /kän man/
noun INFORMAL
noun: con man; plural noun: con men; noun: conman; plural noun: conmen; noun: con-man; plural noun: con-men
a man who cheats or tricks someone by gaining their trust and persuading them to believe something that is not true.
That is so far off as to not even be called a stretch or exaggeration. Do you consider Amazon a con man? A charlatan? For one thing, these words describe people, and "dark pattern" is a type of design/UX element.
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God forbid we keep a blacklist of those out to fool us.
Bet you didn’t realize (Score:3)
“His Dark Materials” is actually a biopic about Jeff Bezos.
"Dark Patterns" ? (Score:1)
That’s racist.
These patterns vary in scumminess (Score:3)
But honestly, they're all about marketing psychology, which is sort of scummy to begin with. I personally love the phrase "Hurry! Limited quantities left!", which, when you think about it, describes exactly 100% of all purchases of physical goods throughout all of history.
I did a quick search, and even though I don't recall hearing the name "dark patterns" before, it's been around at least a few years. A rather now-infamous example is Microsoft's "Upgrade to Windows 10" dialog box, which was a master class of deliberately misleading design.
One of my personal favorites... (Score:4, Interesting)
...is "add to cart to see price!"
Re:One of my personal favorites... (Score:4, Insightful)
...is "add to cart to see price!"
I add it and then immediately remove it, hopefully adding a data point to the "saw the price and fled" metric.
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Some of those are I think for legal reasons.
Or they maybe lie about it.
Like suppliers give you free advertising (perhaps in the form of authorized seller) in exchange you cannot advertise for below a price they set.
Listing the item on the page below said price is considered advertising it, but once it's in your cart it's not.
It's definitely a dark pattern, but not necessarily the site's fault.
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Remember those "free" learn-to-use cdroms that were advertised on tv, but you had to pay shipping and handling? "Handling" is code for "Thats our price" in such cases. Online marketplaces may be doing the reverse of that... free shipping but the price depends on your location.
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They usually reveal the price before getting a zipcode though.
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Still better than "log in to see prices", which is just a way to harvest your contact information so they can spam you forever and ever amen... that, or an opportunity to charge different customers different prices. Or both. When I see that BS, I immediately go looking for another source.
Dang, I was fooled (Score:2)
I thought "dark patterns" meant "dark" as in a "hidden, conspiracy-theory" way, not "dark" as in "hard to eyeball."
An example of "conspiracy theory" "dark patterns" would be using analytics in spooky and shady ways, like a doctor's office selling your data to a data broker who sold it to a company that marketed baby-products so as soon as you get the results of your pregnancy test all your ads are all about babies. Oh wait, that's already happening.
Oh well, both techniques are shady, pardon the pun.
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Yeah, but it's google doing that, not your doctor. Your retailers and credit card companies are also probably sharing data. Banks too. It's just so tasty and it's just sitting RIGHT there. How can they resist such an easy revenue stream? Someone surely needs a bonus.
So just like normal stores then (Score:2)
Call me shocked.
How Many? (Score:3)
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Only two tickets left at this price! /fire up the VPN/ Only five tickets left at this price!
To be fair - and I'm not certain we should be - with tickets, there's a holding period while things are (potentially) being purchased. As you start the process, those tickets are locked, marked as inaccessible to others. If you don't complete the transaction within a couple minutes, they revert back to being available for others to buy. Some of what you describe could simply be that. Maybe.
Some merchants use dirty tricks to mislead, what? (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I know slashdot posts old stories but really, 3759 years old? Really, slashdot?
This is not new (Score:2)
Brick and mortar stores have been pulling this shit for years
Anyone not smart or aware enough to get caught by these simple tricks deserves what they get
ALWAYS read every word that describes your purchase carefully, and examine your shopping cart before pushing the buy button
Re:This is not new (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do you want to buy from retailers who are trying to trick you into paying more money or unintentionally buying things? Wouldn't you rather patronize retailers who didn't constantly make you read every line of fine print and just treat you fairly? Or does it make you feel smart?
Cause, personally, I'm lazy. I prefer a system where asshole companies are called out so I can avoid them instead of spar with them.
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Re: This is not new (Score:1)
What's new? (Score:4, Insightful)
Never Heard of E'm (Score:1)
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"Shopping websites that were more popular, according to Alexa rankings, were more likely to feature dark patterns," researchers said.
But while the vast majority of UI dark patterns were meant to trick users into subscribing to newsletters or allowing broad data collection...
So a lot of it is, in fact, the big sites probably including amazon, walmart, staples,
Dont believe anything (Score:1)
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I hope it's a joke, because this 'fashion phrenology' will only mislead you.
Even if there is any tiny bit of substance to this, I think the best con men would know to avoid pleats or anything else that would blow their cover.
Aka "advertisement". (Score:2)
How is this any different than the strangely tolerated crime known as "advertisement"?
It is just fraud. Nothing else.
But then again, all profit aleady is, by definition.
Not that I'm not saying we should finally make it illegal.
Seems like the article is engaging... (Score:2)
...in "dark patterns" by using the term "dark pattern"
When I read that, I thought it was some malicious logic built into the site and the code run on the server (aka "logic bomb"), or malicious stuff in the UI that is self triggering if the user clicked on certain parts of the site. Why not just say "deceptive advertising", or is that just not 'cool' enough to grab eyeballs so in desperation they had to use a creepy and mysterious term such as "dark pattern"?