[HN Gopher] Request for comments regarding topics to be discusse...
___________________________________________________________________
Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark
Patterns workshop
Author : sincerely
Score : 468 points
Date : 2021-05-02 17:29 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.regulations.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.regulations.gov)
| einpoklum wrote:
| I can offer them some comments about dark patterns in government
| regulation.
| harrybr wrote:
| Please don't just vent here - submit your comments to the FTC
| website!
| bogwog wrote:
| A common one is fake consent popups for system notifications.
|
| Websites need to ask for consent before sending system
| notifications via the Notifications API. If a user declines, that
| website is blocked from asking again (for obvious reasons)
|
| But many websites cheat this by showing a fake consent popup
| designed to mimic what the browser would show. If a user clicks
| "Decline" on the fake popup, the website won't show the real one
| to avoid being blocked. So the next time you visit the site,
| they'll be able to show you that popup again as many times as
| they want.
|
| If a user finally clicks "Accept" on the fake popup (out of
| frustration probably) then they'll show the real popup. To most
| people, seeing two popups might seem like a glitch, and will just
| mindlessly click "Accept" twice.
|
| The only way to circumvent this is to click "Accept" on the fake
| popup, and then click "Decline" on the real one. 99% of people
| aren't going to know how to do that.
|
| ...I'd post this myself as a comment, but I don't like that it's
| asking for so much personal information (full name, email, state,
| city, phone, etc)
| bmuon wrote:
| Is this really a dark pattern? There's tons of truly deceptive
| practices but this is one where websites are plainly asking for
| permissions.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Yes - they're circumventing the intent of the permissions
| restrictions implementation to the clear detriment of the
| user.
| bmuon wrote:
| Highly debatable. In fact, trying to classify it as a dark
| pattern may derail the very valid discussion that the FTC
| is trying to have. There are significantly worse patterns
| out there. See [1].
|
| What the push notification pattern is, is annoying. And it
| is specially annoying because of a prevalence of
| confirmation dialogs all over the Web with GDPR/CCPA, paid
| subscriptions, etc. But does it cause harm or monetary loss
| as the sneak into basket pattern? Or the opt-out
| unnecessary "insurance" that airlines continue to put in
| the checkout flow?
|
| We do a disservice to ourselves littering the web with
| these constant asks. But it's not what needs regulation and
| enforcement.
|
| [1] https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern
| ryandrake wrote:
| The pattern tries to avoid an outcome desired by the
| user: permanently revoking consent for some permission.
| Only asking when you are confident the answer is Yes goes
| against the intent of the platform functionality, and I'd
| argue that's a major dark pattern.
|
| Similar to how apps used to ask "how do you like app?"
| And then only prompt to review the app if you responded
| favorably. Goes entirely against the app store's intent
| to uniformly sample users, and I'm glad Apple at least
| has cracked down on this practice.
|
| Just honestly make a product and stop trying to fool the
| user!
| reificator wrote:
| The browser is designed so that a website gets one chance to
| ask for that permission, rather than nag every single time
| you visit.
|
| If it's not a dark pattern to ask again every time you hit
| Deny, then why don't they do it again every time you hit
| Allow?
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's a trick to try to take a yes / no choice and sneakily
| turn it into a "yes / ask me again later" choice. Silicon
| Valley in general seems to have a huge problem with the
| idea of user consent and permanently revoking consent.
| r_singh wrote:
| I was not aware about this but stackoverflow shows me their
| consent box (and on every stack exchange site) everyday
| coddle-hark wrote:
| This was driving me crazy too, turns out that my adblocker
| was breaking the consent box. Clicking "Accept" didn't do
| anything.
| reificator wrote:
| The trick there is to use your adblocker to pick the
| consent box and hide it, and then edit the custom rule to
| apply to every site.
| llacb47 wrote:
| Which adblocker?
| busymom0 wrote:
| I am having the same issue too on Mac Safari with
| AdGuard.
| busymom0 wrote:
| App developers do this in their apps too when asking to rate
| the app in the App Store. They first show you a fake popup
| asking if you are enjoying the app OR want to send feedback.
| They will only show you the real iOS popup for reviewing the
| app if you tap "Yes" to the enjoying app.
| matham wrote:
| Thank you! This is something that has been annoying the hell
| out of me on instagram using desktop Firefox.
|
| Every time I login it prompts to show notifications; I always
| decline so it shows it again next time I log in. This time I
| accepted, but blocked it from within firefox.
|
| I get it's not a dark pattern because it's clear it's not the
| browser asking, but still it's very annoying.
| suifbwish wrote:
| I found that a lot of those have commonly named elements you
| can create rules for in noscript so you never see them. Not
| sure if it would effect the dark pattern ones though.
| jeremy_wiebe wrote:
| This is commonly referred to as a "soft ask." The reasons for
| it are not always nefarious. On some platforms you cannot
| provide any commentary on why you want to send push
| notifications and so the soft ask provides a way to give more
| context on the next (real) permission dialog.
|
| I'm not saying this isn't abused all over, but when used
| effectively it can provide the user with more information to
| decide if they want to accept or not as well as allow the
| website to request it again at a future time possibly for a
| different reason.
| bogwog wrote:
| I'm not referring to "soft asks". The dark pattern is
| creating a fake dialog that mimics the real system dialog in
| order to mislead, and circumvent a feature designed to
| protect users from spam/abuse.
|
| Telling a user why they're about to get a permissions dialog,
| and displaying a real system dialog, is obviously not a dark
| pattern.
|
| They're common as hell, but I can't seem to find a live
| example of what I'm talking about right now.
| shkkmo wrote:
| An informative prompt explaining why permissions are needed
| with a single continue button is not a dark pattern.
|
| If you have a "decline" button that bypasses the browser,
| then you are using a dark pattern.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I get these all the time on mobile websites, and arrived at the
| same solution you did: tap Accept on the fake popup and then
| Block on the real consent box.
|
| I suppose a site could trick me by making their fake popup look
| exactly like the real one. But in that case I would tap Block
| and be no worse off, other than seeing the same notification
| again the next time, at which point I would probably figure out
| their trick.
|
| I thought of explaining this to some friends to help spare them
| some needless popups, but decided it was too complicated and
| would likely just confuse them. This is not an insult toward my
| friends, just a reminder that something that seems simple to
| you or me may be very puzzling for most people, no matter how
| intelligent they are.
| enedil wrote:
| The real popup in Chrome and Firefox exceeds the website
| frame, so you can easily distinguish it.
| la_fayette wrote:
| I am convinced, by many real world observations, that the
| average joe user cannot distinguish fake html/css/js popups
| from OS popups.
| rosmax_1337 wrote:
| What is the most reasonable way that "we" and people like us on
| HN could do to prevent Dark Patterns as they are right now? Maybe
| the FTC will prevent some in the future, maybe they won't, I
| don't put much hope into it. Lawmaking on the internet right now
| is a mess, and GDPR whilst it might have had good intents ended
| up being a big mistake imo. (Certainly the whole consent-cookie
| thing is a mistake)
|
| We can all promise not to implement Dark Patterns in the software
| we write. But the good old "personal boycott" isn't really
| working, and hasn't really been working since forever. If for
| example Youtube won't allow you to turn off your screen on a
| mobile device, unless you buy premium (turning off the screen is
| a hardware feature, not a website feature), then the solution
| isn't really to stop using Youtube. There isn't an alternative.
|
| Man, when I think about this stuff I can get kinda jaded.
| Antidotes like youtube-dl, or ublock origin work, but they only
| work for "us", and not everyone else who has to live in the Dark
| Pattern hellhole that the internet is turning into. I meet people
| who have never heard of an adblocker, still in 2021.
|
| And even if "we" all stop implementing Dark Patterns, there will
| be plenty of other cheap hires who will gladly implement the same
| features when we refuse to do that kind of stuff. And if you're
| in a bad enough spot it would leave you out of work even. What if
| there was some kind of union? Like say something called "union of
| ethical software", which may more technically be a international
| non-profit rather than a union, which does a few different
| things:
|
| 1) Establishes open standards for how things should work, in
| regards to "ethical software", rather than say technical
| standards.
|
| 2) Has a donation fund which funds
|
| A) A small team of lawyers/tech-people, who will on a strategic
| basis defend cases where an employee might end up in trouble
| refusing to implement features which are in conflict with 1). Not
| to primarily save employees, but to primarily scare tech-giants
| from going for the "do it or ill fire you stick immediately".
|
| B) A small team of educators and speakers, who would spend time
| creating educational content and essentially political content as
| to garner public opinion in favor of all this, the types of
| people to appear on say TV during a big case against for example
| Google.
|
| I'm just throwing ideas at the wall here though. Saw another
| comment here about living in a off-grid cabin. That sounds very
| nice, and better each day.
|
| ...The ESITF, Ethical Standards for Information Technology
| Foundation. Did it have a ring?
| chiefofgxbxl wrote:
| Windows 10 does not respect the "default browser" setting when
| opening web-based content through apps. For example, clicking on
| "Help" links or search results from the start menu always opens
| in Edge.
|
| This seems far worse than their IE-bundling issue back in the
| day... at least users have a few web browsers to choose from, but
| what good is that when user preference is overridden?
| Mixtape wrote:
| Microsoft adding promotional material for Edge above the search
| results for "Google Chrome" in Edge also further reinforces
| this.
| thrill wrote:
| If Microsoft could ensure that the target browser would
| properly show the help documentation, then the complaint would
| hold more weight.
| anonymousab wrote:
| If there's documentation that renders correctly in modern
| edge but is unusable in Chrome(ium) or Firefox then that
| would be useful to see.
|
| It's a valid concern but I'm fairly certain it's nowhere near
| the top reasons that they do this. They have a history of
| trying to shove users into Microsoft's unwanted browser
| against their (often informed) wishes.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| If Microsoft can't hire people to be able to design a webpage
| that renders in all web browsers, then they have fallen much
| further than I would have even made fun of them.
| thiht wrote:
| Doesn't Apple do the same with Safari? On macOS I think Safari
| opens up sometimes even though my default browser is Firefox.
| Maybe when clicking links in Apple Mails? Not sure.
|
| It's funny how Apple gets away when doing the same thing or
| worse than Windows, yet Windows is always the one getting
| criticism. Like how Apple always try to enable Siri after an
| update. Or how managing when an update should be done is
| incredibly worse on macOS than on Windows.
| desert_boi wrote:
| Almost certain that macOS opens everything in my default
| browser of choice when clicking on a link in AirMail
| (Firefox).
| thow-01187 wrote:
| Google does this even more egregiously with Android - my
| default browser is Firefox, but any links from Google News,
| Google Assistant and other Google software open in Chrome.
| delecti wrote:
| There's a setting to change that.
|
| It shouldn't have to be a separate setting from the overall
| default browser, but at least it's relatively easy to change.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Yep, Samsung camera will only open Samsung gallery, and
| will show a "Unable to find application to perform this
| action" toast if you uninstall it (via adb, because it
| can't be uninstalled via gui). Also it's the only app you
| can set to open by double tapping the home button, so you
| can't configure another camera application with the same
| ease of use.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I wish Firefox provided two intents (does Android still call
| it that?), one for normal browsing and one for private
| browsing. Then any app that opens a link doesn't
| automatically get your active cookies from your main browser
| if you don't want it to.
| Osiris wrote:
| I use Firefox Focus as my default. It does this. No tabs,
| no cookies.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Settings > Private browsing (under Privacy and security) >
| Open links in a private tab
|
| An alternative is to use Firefox Focus (Firefox Klar on
| F-Droid) as your default browser, then its "open in"
| feature if you want to make it a permanent session.
| pranau wrote:
| Apple does this as well on iOS where certain stock apps like
| Books always open links in Safari even when you have a
| different default browser set.
| jozzy-james wrote:
| to be fair, there is nothing other than safari on
| iOS...despite the window dressing.
| lights0123 wrote:
| Right, but other browsers have better behaviors to some
| people. For example, Safari's behavior of opening links as
| new tabs in the foreground is very annoying to me.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Not an iOS developer but I wonder if using the default
| browser requires using a different intent than the former
| behavior of "always open safari" did. Books, to me, seems
| like one of the more neglected first-party apps so it
| honestly wouldn't surprise me if this is just something
| that's sitting in the P4 column.
|
| Only reason I assume this is all the Google apps on my phone
| bring up a sheet when I tap a link asking which browser I
| want to use-- with "system default" being one of the options.
|
| Really there's no excuse for this, it can't be too difficult
| to adapt system apps to fall in line with the expectations
| for third-party apps.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I hate it when Linkedin or Lunchclub does a "connect your
| friends!" and you accidentally click a button and it literally
| launches spam invites for your entire address book.
|
| Worst part is that NO ONE has ever called them out for such a
| dark pattern, but the pattern forces ppl to send unsolicited
| emails to their contacts AND pretends it's meant to be sent by
| the person.
|
| Incredibly devious
| robinj6 wrote:
| Love that this website requires following a link for every
| comment.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Although not software, gym memberships are notorious for using
| all manner of slimy tactics to keep you paying. Online reps can't
| do anything, your local gym somehow never has a "manager" around
| who can do anything. You can "freeze" your account but then they
| can just arbitrarily unfreeze and start charging you again. Very
| close to having my CC company issue a charge-back to our local
| gym for fraud. Very shady and hopefully these can be made
| illegal.
| gundmc wrote:
| Yes! Cancelling my 24 Hour Fitness membership was a nightmare.
| I also found out that the name is not indicative of their 6 AM
| to 8 PM hours. Horrible experience all around.
| amalcon wrote:
| There was a chain of gyms in Boston that famously required you
| to go there in person to cancel. When they closed due to COVID,
| they continued charging their members. The closure prevented
| members from both cancelling and making use of gym services.
|
| That got shut down pretty quickly, but it's telling that they
| even thought they could get away with something so brazen.
| bilalq wrote:
| A gym I had a membership with wouldn't let me cancel in person
| and insisted I do so via registered mail. So incredibly slimy.
| lucb1e wrote:
| That's one option that always works, and people don't seem to
| get that. While it's scummy that you _have_ to do it that way
| (that 's obviously bollocks), this would also be the way to
| tell them to stop charging you if their customer support
| won't pick up, their email server rejects yours as spam, the
| web form is broken, that sort of shit (people elsewhere in
| the thread mention a million-and-one instances of this, not
| realizing that there is another way). Send them a letter and
| be done with it.
| robinj6 wrote:
| Worst dark pattern IMHO these days is the free trial that
| requires a credit card and rolls right into subscription,
| especially when it defaults to annual and there's an early
| cancellation fee. Canceling subscriptions is also a labyrinth
| that differs by site.
| pizza wrote:
| Not sure if this counts but yesterday I saw that _skipping
| updates_ is now a Pro feature in Docker Desktop!
| mimsee wrote:
| Ecommerce sites showing a "27 people are watching this right now"
| alongside the product but from source code it turns out to be a
| Math.random()
| jb1991 wrote:
| Booking.com lost a court case over this from what I've heard.
| "Only two rooms left!" nonsense.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Etsy does a "Only 4 items left, but 7 people have it in their
| cart" or something similarly worded
| zemo wrote:
| Etsy users put things in their cart to bookmark them.
|
| I haven't been there for six years now, but one of the
| problems I worked on at Etsy was getting people to stop using
| their cart as a bookmarking tool. While I was there I worked
| on the functionality to fave an item as well as the
| functionality to add items to a List of favorites. There was
| another tool called Treasuries for this purpose that we
| phased out, so there were at least three systems that Etsy
| built to try to help people keep track of items they like
| without putting them in their cart. I know when we introduced
| Lists, several colleagues and I worked on that functionality
| for a few months before it ever saw the light of day. Even
| so, users continued to put things in their cart "so they
| wouldn't forget them". It was a very frustrating result; this
| was the exact behavior we were hoping that Lists would
| eliminate.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if it's true that the item really is
| in that many carts. I would also agree that it's not useful
| or accurate information for you, another shopper, since an
| Etsy user "having it in their cart" is in many cases not a
| very strong signal that they will purchase the item in
| question. Inflating the number intentionally would definitely
| be a dark pattern. If that number is intentionally inflated
| or is known to be inaccurate or fictional, dark pattern for
| sure.
|
| Whether the current functionality qualifies as a dark pattern
| or not is a lot harder to judge. Is it poor design? Yes. For
| sure. Is it harmful to the user? Again, I think yes.
|
| Is it a dark pattern if you design something poorly
| unintentionally? Does that term measure intent or impact? In
| a legal context I would expect the measure to be intent, so
| in that context this is probably not a dark pattern, but HN
| is not a court of law, so in this context... probably yes?
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| > Inflating the number intentionally would definitely be a
| dark pattern.
|
| Inflating the number intentionally would be criminal fraud,
| plain and simple.
|
| A dark pattern is making the ,,Delete account" button
| smaller and grey while making the ,,No, take me back"
| button huge and green.
|
| Literally lying with the intent of getting money from
| somebody is fraud and has nothing to do with dark pattern.
|
| Btw not attacking you personally, just wanted to clarify
| this misconception.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _users continued to put things in their cart "so they
| wouldn't forget them". It was a very frustrating result;
| this was the exact behavior we were hoping that Lists would
| eliminate._
|
| My wife does this, not just to Etsy, but on all kinds of
| e-commerce sites. So I apologize on her behalf.
|
| I suspect that it's related that she's also one of those
| people who will never bookmark a web page. Instead, she
| keeps a hundred tabs open. I don't understand it. Some
| people are just wired that way.
| kop316 wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious...what does she do when she wants
| to buy something then? From what you describe, she would
| have to remove all but what she wants, then re add
| everything.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Don't apologize. It's a pretty common practice. Some
| e-commerce vendors may not like it, because it disturbs
| their statistics or marketing shenanigans, but the error
| here is on their side - they _assume_ that putting
| something in a cart is an intent to purchase. That
| assumption is wrong.
|
| It's obvious why this happens. The shopping cart, as an
| e-commerce pattern, _is a bookmarking tool_. You put
| stuff there, it stays there while you browse the store
| for other stuff. If you step out for an hour and come
| back, things you added to the cart are still there. If
| you close the tab and open it later, the things are still
| there. If the price changes in between, it 's updated. If
| an item goes out of stock, it's reflected on the cart
| screen. If it quacks and walks like a bookmarking tool,
| ...
|
| The way for the e-commerce sites to stop it is obvious:
| put a time limit on the basket. Purge it if the user
| leaves it be for more than a couple hours. But for some
| reason, nobody seems to do that :).
|
| As for the browser bookmarks, I also don't use them much
| (nor does anybody I know). They map badly to actual use
| cases. For short-term storage, tabs are perfect
| (especially when the browser saves them between
| restarts). For mid-to-long-term storage, you want to save
| your links where you can find them on _any_ device, and
| often you also want to store them within the service
| itself (see also: stars on GitHub - they 're not an
| expression of appreciation for the project, they're _just
| bookmarks_ ).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Intention doesn't need to be a part of defining a dark
| pattern. It is a dark pattern whether it was intended as
| such or not. However, intention could definitely be taken
| into account during sentencing/punishment decisions.
| orpheansodality wrote:
| That one is based on real data (I worked there for a bit),
| but I generally agree this pattern is exploitative
| birdyrooster wrote:
| Is it more or less exploitative than eBay watchers? Why so?
| crmd wrote:
| It's fun to imagine the implications of dramatically raising
| the standard for commercial speech, such that statements which
| intend to mislead are prohibited.
| jozzy-james wrote:
| apply it to physical stores, see how far it goes
| jozzy-james wrote:
| my point being i did some stuff on 'x' available, hurry now
| - and went. and they never had them, but the difference is
| that i traded a quantifiable unit (human life expectancy)
| vs those online that just annoyed people
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| I worked at a large online retailer in NL that got told they
| needed to change their delivery promise because that's not a
| promise you can actually keep. So it does happen, but
| probably not often enough.
| pindab0ter wrote:
| Which online retailer was that? Happen to have a news item
| to link to?
| AbortedLaunch wrote:
| Coolblue. They violated the advertising code. The verdict
| in Dutch is available at https://www.reclamecode.nl/uitsp
| raken/uitspraak/huishouden-e...
| sandermvanvliet wrote:
| Don't have a news article because I learned about it
| through internal channels.
|
| It's the one that does it for the smiles
| crmd wrote:
| I'm glad to hear that! It also lines up with my anecdotal
| experience overseeing a marketing department that Benelux,
| German, and Japanese teams were on the opposite end of the
| spectrum compared to American, Israeli, and Chinese teams
| with respect to "marketing bullshit" practices.
| slver wrote:
| Rookie mistake. You gotta Math.random() that shit server-side.
| airstrike wrote:
| As disingenuous as this may be, I feel it's probably not one of
| the most harmful examples
| dylan604 wrote:
| Anything attempting to falesly manipulate someone with FOMO
| should be punishable. If not with jail time, then heavy
| fines. If not that, they should be forced to do the GoT walk
| of shame.
| ratww wrote:
| When it's using _Math.random()_ , it kinda is.
| pishpash wrote:
| Should be punished as false advertisement.
| chrisin2d wrote:
| I expect an outcome similar to what happened between the
| European Commission and Booking.com.
|
| Booking.com pioneered a lot of e-commerce dark patterns like "X
| units left" and "Y people viewed this today".
|
| The EC pushed Booking.com to change its online sales tactics to
| be more transparent.
| ykat7 wrote:
| Link to the European Commission's press release (2019) for
| anyone interested: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorne
| r/detail/en/ip_19_...
| chrischattin wrote:
| AirBnB doesn't show what the place actually costs until you get
| to the "Reserve" screen. Then the cleaning fee, service fee,
| occupancy fees and taxes are added up. I've seen it literally
| double the advertised price.
|
| I've used AirBnB heavily over the past few years and am a huge
| fan of the business model in general. But, I view this practice
| as borderline unethical. I'm sure it A/B tests well, but it's
| super annoying having to make several extra clicks just to see
| what you're actually going to pay for the place at checkout.
| m-ee wrote:
| I've noticed recently that many of the places on Airbnb are
| also listed on VRBO, and usually cheaper for some reason. VRBO
| also lets you filter by total price from the start.
| lazyeye wrote:
| The best example of a dark pattern for me is Google's privacy
| settings. Such a ridiculously convoluted and unintuitive process.
| The polar opposite of everything else they try to do.
| rossmohax wrote:
| When creating a member account within AWS Organization it asks
| for root account email, this address is never validated before
| account is created. If you made a typo in that email and it
| happen to be on a valid domain you have no access to, then it is
| impossible to close that account and support is refusing to do
| anyhing, even if you contact them immediately.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I'm not sure that's a "dark pattern" that's just AWS
| incompentence, spiced up with a dash of "no my department" in
| customer service.
| calrueb wrote:
| Push notifications and their subtle ability to form usage habits
| (see notification -> open app -> browse feed) is a "Dark Pattern"
| that is used all across the consumer app industry. You can tell
| how focused a company is on growth and engagement by how many
| notifications you get a day (Clubhouse for instance slammed me
| with notifications until I shut them off).
| andreilys wrote:
| Clubhouse has one of the worst notification management systems
| ever.
|
| There's no way to select specific notifications you want (e.g.
| person you follow starts a room). Instead you get inundated
| with useless notifications about random rooms.
| modshatereality wrote:
| FTC website falls victim to the darkest pattern of all: relying
| on javascript to manipulate html elements, so this is just a
| blank page; yet another anti-HTML site.
| easterncalculus wrote:
| One example for sure is the endless CAPTCHAs you receive on
| virtually any large website when you attempt to connect from TOR.
| Each time you solve one it takes forever just to complain about
| how you spending several minutes selecting every 'light' suddenly
| isn't good enough to prove your humanity. You're not "checking if
| I'm human" 60 times in a row, you're blocking me for not wanting
| to be tracked on your website.
| dd36 wrote:
| Clubhouse scraping all your phone numbers to find someone on the
| app is dark.
| eh9 wrote:
| Would companies that promise "securing your iPhone" count as a
| dark pattern? They just seem to trick people into thinking their
| phone is vulnerable and can only be protected by their software
| instead of an OTA update.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| Any kind of choice between "yes" and "later". That's BS. If you
| offer "yes" you must offer "no".
| mtone wrote:
| Connecting to a Microsoft Teams of Office work account from
| home gives you the fantastic "Use this account everywhere on
| your device".
|
| It has 4 effective choices [0] with no clue about what's going
| to happen to your windows account and what data or remote
| control permissions will be sent to your organization.
|
| [0]:
| https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECN/Support/KB/Docs/HomePCsud...
| gundmc wrote:
| Yes, but have you tried YouTube Premium?
| sippeangelo wrote:
| This drives me nuts on Twitter. "See less often" is not what I
| want, and it doesn't even work.
| sincerely wrote:
| I linked to the comments page, here is a document with more
| details:
| https://downloads.regulations.gov/FTC-2021-0019-0001/content...
| akomtu wrote:
| Most of those dark patterns revolve around stealing personal data
| to sell it to data brokers, sometimes accompanied by extortion to
| give more of that data. If a big international corp made money by
| stealing bicycles or cars, its execs would quickly end up in
| prison, but this is what's happening right now in the internet.
| If our politicians had balls and moral, they would make it a
| crime to steal PII, unless the firm has a contract with the
| customer signed by ink, not transferrable, expiring in a year at
| most, with gov entities exempt. Unfortunately, PII theft has
| become the backbone of the modern economy.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| As a non-American: is this actually something the FTC has
| authority over?
| dylan604 wrote:
| Maybe? We'll see what happens when/if they actually try.
| Lobbyists' phones are probably going off right now with big
| tech trying to spur them into action.
| delecti wrote:
| At least theoretically yes. One of their main purposes is to
| establish regulations to protect customers.
| ibraheemdev wrote:
| darkpatterns.org is a pretty good reference:
| https://www.darkpatterns.org
| austincheney wrote:
| A roughly 70% solution is to mandate WCAG 2.1 AA conformance.
| After that the problems largely distill down to misleading and
| deceptive content. Deceptive content resulting in a financial
| harm not as a result of a technical defect is fraud.
|
| How to prove fraud in court? Easy, make them liable for
| presenting accessibility conformance against the issue in
| question. The defendant only has to demonstrate a good faith
| effort to account for and correct the issue, but if they cannot
| do that, because fraud is intentional, take them to the cleaners.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| The internet was nice while it lasted.
|
| I'm thinking that that guy on youtube who builds cabins from
| scratch in Canada with the charming Golden Retriever ('My Self
| Reliance') probably has the right idea. Maybe the right answer is
| a terminal that does email, banking, and Amazon.
| diveanon wrote:
| How can you bemoan what the internet has become and support
| Amazon in the comment?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _How can you bemoan what the internet has become and support
| Amazon in the comment?_
|
| Amazon is a lifeline for people who live in remote places,
| which is what I think he means by cabins in Canada.
|
| Amazon is the new Sears Catalog, enabling people who live
| pretty much anywhere in North America to buy things quickly
| and safely that are not available to them any other way.
|
| Pre-pandemic I spent a lot of time with people who live in
| places where a "supermarket run" happens every other month,
| when the person with the largest truck drives three hours to
| the nearest Costco to fill ten grocery lists for all the
| neighbors. Amazon handles the days in between.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Amazon annoys the living daylights out of me, but that's
| because of usability issues, not because of deceptive or
| intentionally-misleading practices. What are the ones you're
| thinking of?
|
| If anything, Amazon's incompetence at search screws them out
| of sales they would otherwise make. Their "dark patterns" are
| all aimed at their own foot.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Amazon is the best thing that every happened on the web. I
| know people here hate it, and in the US apparently it has an
| issue with fake goods, haven't had any think like that happen
| to me here in Europe.
|
| I can buy just about anything from one shop and have it
| arrive at my door. The weirdest combos ever. An HDMI cable
| and cat food? Yes sir that will be on your doorstep next
| monday. A #2 screw driver and a new bag for my vacum cleaner?
| A bag pack, a pair of pants and a flash light? Right you go.
|
| I no longer have to go out to small shops and find the item I
| want, saving me a ton of time. Plus so, so many books.
|
| Maybe it is different in the US where you have wallmart, but
| here I have to source things from different online shops,
| which takes time, is annoying an results in higher fees, plus
| I don't know which shops are any good.
|
| Amazon solves that problem.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Because they are one of the few internet companies that I
| find actually useful. If you live in a rural area, there's
| really no other way. A new PC, a floor jack, large book
| store, decent boots, are all 60 miles away. Of course, Amazon
| caused part of the retail desert, although I'd mostly blame
| box stores (and the Sears catalog before that).
|
| With the sites I named, I think my life would trundle on
| pretty much unchanged. Maybe Usenet could be added to the
| list for the odd bit of online socializing.
|
| While I'm designing my personal minimal internet, I'd add
| that all the interfaces were text based. Potentially a person
| could bolt on a low/no vision voice-based front-end.
| wincy wrote:
| Before the Sears catalog you instead had local monopolies
| by general store owners who could be absolute tyrants since
| there weren't any cars. Getting what you need has always
| been difficult unless you literally live where it's being
| made, which these days is Shenzhen or Guangzhou or
| somewhere like that.
|
| The Rise and Fall of American Growth [0] is a fascinating
| book that talks about how much the Sears catalog
| revolutionized commerce in rural America.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-American-Growth-
| Princeton/d...
| latenightcoding wrote:
| twitter randomly deciding that the account you created 5 minutes
| ago is suspicious and they will block it until you provide your
| phone number.
|
| also all of medium and linkedin
| elliekelly wrote:
| Well it's quite clear that none of the commenters so far have
| read the document they're commenting on and almost none of them
| seem able to distinguish between "software" and the internet.
|
| And I can't say I blame them. I know the fenty website isn't
| software but what about facebook and amazon? I don't really
| consider them software but I suppose most of their users access
| the site(s) through iOS and android apps which I _would_ consider
| software.
| rosstex wrote:
| Here's the recent FTC workshop on Dark Patterns related to this
| call for comments: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-
| calendar/bringing-dar...
| hereme888 wrote:
| Every modern video game
| steve-benjamins wrote:
| Web.com charges 13 months in a year.
|
| They bill months in 4 week intervals-- so a month = 28 days which
| = 13 months per year. This is all in their fine print.
|
| Screenshot:
| https://twitter.com/stevebenjamins/status/138531992456700313...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Here's a fun one:
|
| An e-commerce website that offers a subscription page for signup
| but requires you to contact customer service by phone or email in
| order for you to cancel. Went through this recently with Bespoke
| Post. I sent the cancellation email, their customer service
| person replied saying that they would instead suspend my
| subscription for three months, and required me to send them
| another email.
|
| I'd LOVE to see an FTC rule that requires companies who take
| subscriptions by web have link on the account page to unsubscribe
| by web.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I had an experience a couple of days ago with exactly this type
| of thing (I downloaded the comment form, and I'll send it in).
|
| In this case, it nearly cost the app maker a sale (I doubt
| they'll go out of business on the loss of my sale. As it
| happened, they didn't actually lose the sale).
|
| I wanted to ID some of the plants in my yard, looking for native
| vs. introduced, so I downloaded a couple of apps. One was a good
| one, but was really a "crowdsourced" one. I had to sign up for an
| account, and participate in a community. Not a showstopper; but
| not really what I was looking for. I'm into instant
| gratification.
|
| The other one was an ML-type app that would analyze photos in
| realtime.
|
| When I started it up, it immediately wanted me to get the in-app
| purchase to the "premium" version, which is actually a yearly
| subscription.
|
| The dark pattern, was how they did that. They obfuscated and
| deprecated the navigation to the free variant. It was almost
| impossible to see the buttons behind the premium banner, and it
| was difficult to actually touch them.
|
| At first, I immediately shitcanned the app, as I assumed that you
| were required to get a subscription before using it at all.
|
| I did a bit more research, and everyone was saying it was a
| decent app, and that it could be used without the subscription.
|
| So I tried it again. This time, I squinted, and found the links.
|
| It worked really well. I'll be getting the subscription.
|
| The moral of the story is that they were so big on a dark
| pattern, trying to force new users to start paying immediately,
| that they actually drive off sales. The app works well. They
| don't need to hide it. That's what apps that suck do. This app
| does not suck.
| burkaman wrote:
| Have you tried Seek
| (https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/seek_app)? It's from
| iNaturalist, which might be the community-based one you found,
| but you can easily ignore the community stuff and use it
| without an account. Works pretty well, I recommend it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Yes, iNaturalist Seek was the community-based one. It was
| also regarded well.
| FredPret wrote:
| I've tried some ML plant ID apps and they were all totally off.
| What's this good one called, if you don't mind saying?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| https://www.picturethisai.com
|
| I should qualify this by saying I have a small yard on Long
| Island, NY. The weeds and plants are fairly distinct and
| well-known.
|
| Depending on where you are, YMMV.
| dmd wrote:
| Seek works incredibly well but has no paid version, so maybe
| that's something else.
| thraway123412 wrote:
| > The moral of the story is that they were so big on a dark
| pattern, I'll be getting the subscription.
|
| Yeah thanks for rewarding them for that.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> > The moral of the story is that they were so big on a
| dark pattern, I'll be getting the subscription.
|
| > Yeah thanks for rewarding them for that._
|
| That was not a nice thing to do -altering a quote, to make it
| appear as if I said something I didn't. I am leaving your
| response in its unmodified entirety, above.
|
| Look, you have your opinion, I have mine, but It's a decent
| app. I will be providing feedback to them -as a paying
| subscriber, there's a good chance my feedback will be heard.
|
| But the thing I have against dark patterns, is the same thing
| I have against what you did -it's dishonest.
| thraway123412 wrote:
| That was not intended to be read as a literal quote or an
| attempt to make it appear as if you said something you
| didn't. That's a _fairly common_ way of picking a message
| apart to make a point, on some parts of the internet.
| Sometimes people paraphrase instead of literally copying
| words (esp. if there 's no good short sequence of words to
| borrow), but quote marks are still used. I wish we had a
| better notation for this. I'm sorry to have caused
| confusion.
|
| Anyway, the point was just to express my disappointment in
| that people keep supporting a company even after
| complaining about their horrible dark patterns. And I don't
| really mean to single you out personally, it's everywhere:
| people complain and then keep using and rewarding the
| service(s) they complain about. IME this rarely leads to
| them becoming better over time, they just get worse over
| time because they can get away with it. Abuse users until
| the very end. It seems to work, we have so many users and
| more are rolling in!
|
| Of course if you're actually giving them feedback, all the
| power to you. I respect your opinion too.
|
| To give you an idea where I stand, a few days ago I was
| thinking of buying a keyboard for my workshop PC. I have a
| couple Planck EZs and they're decent keyboards. So I went
| over to the ZSA site, started reading about their new
| keyboard (Moonlander), and... MODAL POPUP ADVERTISING A
| MAGAZINE[1]! Now I remember the time when browsers started
| adding popup blockers built-in, and everyone (except scummy
| advertisers) rejoiced. So I find it disturbing, disgusting,
| and extremely disrespectful to bring back popups in the
| form of modals. I kinda try to put my money where my mouth
| is, so my reaction was to unsubscribe their magazine (the
| way they presented it when I bought my plancks wasn't so
| bad) and take my shopping elsewhere.
|
| [1] https://i.imgur.com/9bCDNMl.png
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Understood.
|
| I believe that, as a software developer, I am constantly
| encountering the classic "Do $20,000 worth of work for me
| for free." If I refuse, it can sometimes get quite
| unpleasant.
|
| As it so happens, I actually do a great deal of free
| software. The users can sometimes be a bit on the
| "knucklehead" side, but they usually respect my
| boundaries.
|
| The people that don't, tend to be business owners. I sort
| of expect it, as a good business owner is always looking
| for every advantage they can. I can sometimes get rather
| peeved by their attitudes. Around these parts, business
| owners tend to be especially aggressive, and NY is known
| for a hyper-aggressive environment and culture.
|
| The people that wrote the app do a valuable service. They
| trained up a fairly effective neural network. The apps
| are... _OK_. Not outstanding, but OK. They do get their
| primary function done pretty effectively. That took time
| and skill.
|
| They want to be paid, and I don't begrudge them. I
| believe that supporting paid software is a moral
| imperative for me. I won't go about laying my values on
| other people, but I choose to have this attitude, and I
| like to follow it with action.
| thraway123412 wrote:
| Sure. I think we mostly stand on the same line here.
|
| I just tend to take hard stance against anything I find
| user hostile. Nagging, dark patterns, exploiting
| addictions, attempts at leeching personal information,
| lock-in, etcetra will quickly put you on my no buy list.
|
| I think those things are evil at worst and a waste of
| time and resources (in a global, zero-sum way) at best,
| and long term we'd be better off if everyone rejected
| such behavior and put their money towards business that
| focuses solely on providing superb service without the
| abuse. Unfortunately these abusive practices tend to
| _work_ as far as profit is concerned.. it 's like tragedy
| of the commons, in a way.
|
| I want to get paid too, and live in a nicer world.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Well, I did send them feedback, and pointed at the OP.
| nopeYouAreWrong wrote:
| This might not belong here but I think there's something to be
| said for the changes Google makes and is currently making around
| Performance and Page Ranking. Black box bullsh!t metrics forcing
| everyone to appease the magical algorithms in their highly
| questionable tool. Their own framework fails here significantly.
| iankp wrote:
| TrustArc is a company used by major brands that utilizes dark
| patterns to FAKE opt-out time for GDRP compliance. Major
| companies employ lies. It will hold your browser captive for 2
| minutes in hopes that you cancel or accept all. If you don't, it
| shows "We are processing the requested change to your cookie
| preferences. This may take up to a few minutes to process.". Not
| even incompetence could make this an honest process.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Well, given that some sites employ _hundreds_ of trackers and
| other barely-above-malware stuff, it does make sense for these
| requests to take ages.
|
| Unfortunately, many people simply click on the "accept all"
| button and don't care about their privacy that much.
|
| The idea of GDPR was that consumers would be hesitant upon
| seeing the massive amount of third parties that use your data
| and demand change from the providers, turns out people don't
| care / providers rather let privacy-oriented customers suffer
| than to take a hit on their advertising profits.
| iankp wrote:
| The problem is their competitors manage to accomplish opting-
| out near instantly.
| ratww wrote:
| _> Well, given that some sites employ hundreds of trackers
| and other barely-above-malware stuff, it does make sense for
| these requests to take ages._
|
| Last time I checked, there were no requests being made
| client-side in the 1-2 minutes it took to cancel. It was
| pretty much the same number of requests for both accepting
| and denying. Maybe they changed it since it's too blatant.
|
| Also, since it should be opt-in, then accepting should
| obviously take longer.
| pta2002 wrote:
| But what requests would it even make? If you opt out you're
| effectively telling it to _not_ make any requests.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Wow, that is pretty blatent. When EU stomps on them I'm sure
| someone else will pop up. Any chance the companies employing
| trustarc could be liable?
| lmkg wrote:
| The way GDPR works, I think the companies using TrustArc are
| _more_ likely to be held liable than TrustArc itself. Unless
| TrustArc makes the unforced error of getting itself
| classified as a Data Controller.
| josefx wrote:
| > Unless TrustArc makes the unforced error of getting
| itself classified as a Data Controller.
|
| Knowing how some scams and tax evasion schemes work I
| wouldn't be surprised if they could just set up a separate
| company that ends up with all the liability without any of
| the assets and just have that declare bankruptcy the moment
| the first fines hit. Rinse/Repeat as often as necessary.
| rapnie wrote:
| May have witnessed this or similar on Oracle website, when I
| was still using Java. Always thought "what the hell are you
| processing?".
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| Based in SV with ~370 employees on LinkedIn and over 17K
| followers. this above comment needs to be posted verbatim into
| one of their most recent posts with a mention that GDPR makes
| its EU customers liable and an additional link to the FTC for
| public comments. It would make them scramble I think.
|
| LinkedIn is underrated as a platform to call out brands, it's
| where many spend a lot of their money on PR / image.
| lima wrote:
| Slack has a fun dark pattern - they purposefully remove
| functionality from their web app to make you install their native
| app.
|
| The web app has a workspace switcher sidebar, but it only appears
| on ChromeOS, where you can't install the native client.
|
| https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/144258/slacks-we...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Oh so taken from the same page as the Reddit App it seems
| swiley wrote:
| Discord does this as well. If they detect a mobile user agent
| they disable the button to hide the member list which makes
| group chats unusable. If you just change your user agent the
| button re-appears and you don't even need the app unless your
| browser doesn't handle voice and you need that.
| godelski wrote:
| I'm just impressed how bad slack is on mobile. Either I'm
| getting messages on my computer and phone (on phone after I've
| responded on the computer) or not at all.
| yaml-ops-guy wrote:
| I've been having this problem with push notifications for
| quite a few apps, but Slack just seems to genuinely do
| whatever the hell it wants, regardless of whatever I've set
| preferences to.
| Mixtape wrote:
| Reddit is just as guilty of this. If you want to see all the
| comments on a thread on their mobile site, you're pushed to
| install their official app and presumably create an account
| when doing so. As far as I can tell, the best workaround is to
| use the desktop site.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| For iOS, I recommend Apollo (https://apolloapp.io/). A reddit
| client that isn't from Reddit.
| catillac wrote:
| Thank you! I almost universally use the mobile website but
| it just keeps getting worse, presumably on purpose. I
| installed the official app but it's very bad. I'll download
| this one now!
| bogwog wrote:
| And on iOS at least, whenever you visit the site you'll get a
| popup that blocks the page with two options: continue in
| mobile app, or continue in safari.
|
| It's basically "install our shitty app, or keep using the web
| version?", except it's worded and displayed in a
| confusing/misleading way with what seems to be an attempt to
| mimic a system dialog.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Not just the website, but the old.reddit version. The new
| Reddit design is a disaster in terms of usability.
|
| I also disable all custom subreddit styles, because so many
| of them are horrible.
| swiley wrote:
| I'm so thankful for the Reddit redesign, I had a serious
| problem spending way too much time on that site. Now it's
| almost completely unusable.
| GordonS wrote:
| Can confirm that you cannot use the app with logging in with
| a Reddit account.
|
| Just yesterday, I got tired of the annoying "use the app or
| login" messages when tapping to view more comments on a post,
| so I caved and installed the app - given the language of the
| nag, I thought I wouldn't have to login, and the Reddit UX of
| constant full-page reloads just to view more comments is such
| a joke I figured the app had to be better.
|
| But no, you have to login with a Reddit account to use the
| app :/
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Long pressing and opening in a new tab works for expanding
| child comment threads (but not for viewing all 500+ commends
| under a post).
|
| Once that stops working, I'll have to always use old.reddit
| on my phone, which won't be great UI on mobile - but I
| suppose it can't be too hard to make a Stylus stylesheet to
| make it usable. And once old.reddit is gone, well, that's the
| end of Reddit for me.
| jimktrains2 wrote:
| i.reddit.com is the old mobile site.
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| Unfortunately it has no way to expand image/video
| previews without navigating to a different page. Makes it
| a lot harder to use for me.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Also Zoom. Their web version seems to no longer work on
| Safari/Mac and Firefox/Mac, so they essentially force you
| onto native or don't use it.
| noisem4ker wrote:
| I don't know about macOS specifically, but elsewhere it can
| be defeated. The link to join from the browser appears if
| you dismiss the initial offer to open the app and force a
| retry. It's absolutely disgusting.
| https://gauginggadgets.com/join-zoom-meeting-without-
| install...
| est31 wrote:
| I use i.reddit.com. I think it was their old mobile site.
| Works like a charm.
| pahn wrote:
| i can recommend teddit, that's reddit without the annoying
| stuff: https://teddit.net/
| chestervonwinch wrote:
| Can you explain why this is a dark pattern? How does slack
| benefit from you using the native app vs. the web app?
| wolpoli wrote:
| One major benefit of native app over web app is their ability
| to send notifications to get the user's attention.
| lima wrote:
| Web apps can send notifications just fine, even in the
| background.
| cma wrote:
| I don't know that they do, but they could potentially read
| your local files as part of telemetry, gps, nearby wifi
| network ssids and MAC addresses, etc.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I mean I personally keep Slack on my Dock since it's open
| pretty frequently. This integrates it even more into my
| workflow since I can quickly check and see if I have any
| unreads/etc. making it more grating to switch to another chat
| app. Maybe it's not a "dark pattern" but it certainly is a
| method to increase adoption.
| rapnie wrote:
| Slack app has 4 trackers, requests 21 permissions on Android.
| Harder to block trackers, while their more tech-oriented
| audience probably uses browser adblockers more often.
|
| https://reports.exodus-
| privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.Slack/l...
| zepto wrote:
| Does this mean that all apps that can't also be used via the
| web are a 'dark pattern'?
|
| I ask because I can easily imagine that if most customers are
| using apps, they might choose to remove functionality from the
| website rather than maintain it, just because it's not worth
| it.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| If it's something that makes more sense as a website, then
| yes. I would go so far as to say any app that doesn't work
| offline is likely a dark pattern
| gnicholas wrote:
| I can't believe that the Microsoft Teams software automatically
| reinstalls itself in my login items every time I open it. I don't
| use it often -- mostly when I have calls with people at Microsoft
| -- but this happens without fail every time.
|
| As far as I'm concerned, this makes the Teams software malware. I
| have never had any other software that repeatedly put itself into
| my login items that wasn't clearly malware. If I worked on Teams,
| I would be embarrassed.
| etripe wrote:
| Is it at all possible Teams is coming back due to a company
| group policy?
| gnicholas wrote:
| It's a personal computer.
| tracer4201 wrote:
| I was shopping on Eddie Bauer about 15 minutes ago. They have a
| great deal on t-shirts and shorts, which they plastered all over
| the page. It works like this - the more items you buy, you get a
| bigger discount.
|
| Great - that makes sense. But there's a catch. If I shop in a
| store, I simply go to the counter, get the discount upon
| checkout, pay, and I'm on my way.
|
| On their website, I have to use a promo code. So I have to
| remember what the promo code was and enter it at checkout. Okay
| -- that seems kind of like a dark pattern.
|
| Here's where they lost my trust. By the time I got to the
| checkout page, they asked for all my shipping and billing details
| and then gave me the final purchase button. I just happened to
| then realize that wait -- I was supposed to enter in a promo
| code! So then I had to back out to find the promo code again, and
| on checkout, I have to scroll down a full screens worth of real
| estate BELOW the purchase button to enter the promo code.
|
| So they advertise the discount up front but then use shady
| tactics hoping I either forget to use the promo code or even if I
| want to, I give up trying to find it and just pay full price.
|
| Needless to say I decided not to purchase from them. It's
| dishonest and not worthy of my business.
| max_ wrote:
| The failure is is not regulators that have failed to "regulate".
|
| It is designers of the tech (browsers, Operating systems) that
| have failed to come up with systems that are difficult for devs
| to abuse.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| How does Firefox stop the "impossible unsubscribe" dark pattern
| that NYTimes uses?
| max_ wrote:
| Gmail for instance rolled out a feature for stuff just like
| this [0].
|
| Firefox also has really great features like containers that
| keep your web activity isolated from other web applications.
| [1].
|
| I wish there was more innovation in this space though.
|
| [0]: https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.leavemealone.app/how-
| does-...
|
| [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-
| US/questions/1201060#answer-1...
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| Notification abuse and autoplay
| fpig wrote:
| The worst one is probably trying to make it hard for users to
| _stop_ paying for a service, like cancelling a subscription. That
| shit should be punishable by literal prison time.
| bmiller2 wrote:
| The worst I've seen was Nord VPN. Three or four modals /
| screens where the action to stop your subscription was the
| smaller, secondary UI element, almost not even noticeable. How
| a dev or PM can live with themselves while implementing that I
| have no idea.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _How a dev or PM can live with themselves while implementing
| that I have no idea._
|
| Dev builds it the user-friendly way. PM uses Google Tag
| Manager to inject JS that changes the stylesheets to the evil
| way.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Nord has all kinds of problems.
|
| My Nord subscription went from $5/month to $200/month
| recently. When I complained, the CSR told me to just cancel
| the account and sign up using the special offer link and a
| throwaway e-mail address.
|
| That tells me there are deeper problems, and I'm not
| interested in doing business with that company.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Companies are required to provide California residents with an
| easy-to-use mechanism for cancelling subscriptions, and any
| subscription that you sign up for online must be cancellable
| online [1].
|
| This actually works quite well. I've had no trouble cancelling
| any subscriptions in the past few years, including the New York
| Times, which took maybe 3 or 4 clicks from the account screen
| (IIRC, there was an optional "why are you cancelling?" screen,
| then they offered a discount, and that was it).
|
| [1]
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
| mrweasel wrote:
| That should be the default, signup and cancellations should
| be available via the same channel.
| internetslave wrote:
| Blue apron. I can't figure out how to cancel through the app,
| so I keep cancelling The deliveries
| dmix wrote:
| About 10yrs ago NBA did this to me. They made it impossible to
| cancel a $99/m sub.
|
| Their instructions were login and go to the cancel button but
| the cancel button was broken and said call this number. But no
| one ever picked up the number.
|
| I will never buy a NBA branded thing after that obvious
| bullshit scam.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| New York Times does this also. As far as I can tell it's
| literally impossible to cancel a subscription. I had to close
| the card attached to my account.
| shubik22 wrote:
| NY Magazine too. After renewing my subscription at 2x the
| original rate I paid, they made it incredibly difficult to
| cancel. When I called their customer support, they told me
| I had purchased my subscription through a third party so
| they couldn't cancel it for me and I'd have to contact the
| third party.
|
| Me: what's their contact info? Agent: inquiries@nymag.com
| Me: This is a third party but they have an NY Mag email
| address? Agent: Yes. Me: ... How are they a third party
| then? Agent: One second, I'm transferring you to my
| supervisor.
|
| Nothing turns me off a brand I like and want to support
| more than 1) autorenewals at 2x your intro price and 2)
| making cancellations both arbitrarily difficult and
| insulting.
| hhjinks wrote:
| You can change your payment option to paypal, remove your
| card from NYT, then remove your card from paypal. They'll
| complain to you for a couple weeks, but they'll cancel it
| for you after a while after that.
| edoceo wrote:
| you can cancel auto-sub in paypal w/o removing the card
| elithrar wrote:
| If your billing address is in California, the NYT do let
| you cancel online.
|
| They intentionally make it extremely high friction.
| gundmc wrote:
| I'm in California and was able to cancel online but only
| after waiting in queue and then "chatting" with a
| retention specialist for 10 minutes.
|
| This was about 2 years ago so maybe they've changed
| since.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I was able to cancel my subscription with minimal fuss.
|
| I did have to interact with a chat window, which was of
| course annoying.
|
| I also made damn sure I received a cancellation email. Too
| many horror stories to not do my due diligence.
| avitous wrote:
| I recently cancelled without any issue... by virtue of
| paying for it initially with Paypal, which makes it trivial
| to cancel the recurring payment on my end. When I called
| them to cancel, and they tried giving me a runaround, I
| interrupted to tell them I had already cancelled the
| payment anyway so they literally had no choice; then I hung
| up. No worries! I will never subscribe to anything that
| doesn't accept Paypal for payment, thereby giving me the
| last word in controlling said payment (yes, I know a credit
| card would allow this, only not as easily.)
| litoorachure wrote:
| I don't think that's accurate today. I recently cancelled
| my NYT subscription from their website, didn't even need to
| call them.
|
| How long ago was your experience?
| ncallaway wrote:
| I ran into this myself 18 months ago. I had subscribed
| years ago online, but was unable to cancel online.
|
| I informed the person who canceled my subscription over
| the phone that I'd never consider doing business with
| them again, unless they fixed the problem.
|
| I hope it's fixed now! That'd be a great improvement
| detaro wrote:
| Do you happen to have an address in California?
| litoorachure wrote:
| No.
| snegu wrote:
| I also was able to easily cancel online a few months ago
| (not in California). I'm wondering if they changed their
| policies recently, in which case this complaint is out of
| date.
| dmix wrote:
| About 10yrs ago
| offtop5 wrote:
| They way to do this is to run the subscription though
| something like Google Play. Then you cancel it on Google's
| side.
|
| Be wary if a company avoids Google. For example Tinder
| started forcing users to subscribe directly instead of
| using Google. This is because most people cancel almost
| immediately since once you subscribe you find all your
| matches are bots.
|
| The entire purpose is to make it just hard enough so you
| think ohh it's only 10$ a month. Another trick is to offer
| a month free. Hulu does this. If you cancel on their
| website you get several pages which try to convince you to
| stay.
|
| Google also makes it easy to manage all your subscriptions
| in one place. What is all this crap I'm paying for, I can
| quickly see what and delete it. Also I'm much more likely
| to try a service ( I'm studying Chinese right now and have
| used various apps) if I can do it via Google Play .
| jackson1442 wrote:
| This is one of the few things that actually makes me
| happy with the closed ecosystem of the App Store on iOS.
| There's virtually no risk with subscriptions in there-
| they can all be canceled in a few clicks in the
| Subscriptions section of your Apple ID. And if
| something's straight up a scam or an accidental (but
| unconsumed) purchase, you can request a refund from Apple
| with rather little friction.
|
| First-party trials annoy me since cancelation is instant,
| unlike trials from third-party apps (those cancel after
| the trial period if you cancel during). Fortunately, you
| can go to Report A Problem and just say you didn't mean
| to have the subscription charged and they'll refund it as
| long as it's a few days from the charge date.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _This is one of the few things that actually makes me
| happy with the closed ecosystem of the App Store on iOS._
|
| And yet there are scams that are costing users $5 million
| a year, or more, on the iOS App Store[1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26794228
| yladiz wrote:
| There are also scams costing people money without using
| iOS, for example where the person is tricked into
| thinking they have a debt and sending thousands of
| dollars in cash to a random address[1]. What's your
| point?
|
| 1: https://youtu.be/VrKW58MS12g (it's the Mark Rober
| phone scammer video)
| jackson1442 wrote:
| I'd need to see the purchase page to fully form an
| opinion on this. Apple has rather strict guidelines for
| displaying cost and that appears to be one of the most
| important parts of app review. I'd equate someone being
| surprised by a subscription cost to someone not looking
| at menu prices when eating out: all purchases through the
| app store use the same sheet to display price, renewal
| period, free trial, etc when requesting payment.
|
| Of course, the app's premise is a scam, but my comment
| was about the ease of canceling and managing
| subscriptions. Dare I say that apps like this would be
| even more bold and prevalent if alternative app stores
| were available.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Tinder started forcing users to subscribe directly
| instead of using Google. This is because most people
| cancel almost immediately since once you subscribe you
| find all your matches are bots.
|
| More likely it's because Google takes a 30% cut. Adyen
| takes a ~4% cut. I still maintain that if Apple and
| Google took a 5% cut from their app stores, no one would
| have complained.
| jupp0r wrote:
| This. PayPal works too, probably others.
| suifbwish wrote:
| Paying for news in 2021 is a lot like paying for porn in
| 2021. Who does that.
| smolder wrote:
| People who want quality journalism pay for it. It comes
| up in the comments here a lot, how journalism has gotten
| lazy/bad because of the lack of money in doing it well.
| The solution is to pay those doing it well.
| snegu wrote:
| That's interesting! I recently cancelled my NYT
| subscription using their live chat with no trouble at all.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Same here. No problems at all. (I'm in Ohio.)
| harles wrote:
| I ran into this as well with NYT (grabbed a sub for
| election season only). You can cancel if you chat with
| someone during business hours - and immediately shoot down
| any attempt to to extend etc.
|
| Related, I really hate Apple taking a permanent 30% cut of
| iOS subs, but I will use that route whenever possible.
| Canceling an iOS sub is always a painless single click
| experience from a known location. In fact I usually
| subscribe and immediately cancel so I'll renew only if I
| actively choose to do so.
| andreilys wrote:
| You can also open a temporary credit card linked to your
| real credit card using www.privacy.com
|
| If you have problems cancelling a subscription, you can
| simply cancel the temporary card that privacy.com created
| for you
| edoceo wrote:
| someone upthread got sent to collections after a card-
| cancel way, so, still some risk
| kart23 wrote:
| And they recently ran an opinion piece calling attention to
| dark patterns.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opinion/dark-pattern-
| inte...
| lostlogin wrote:
| Nicely timed, thank you. They have a sale on I was
| contemplating taking up. Nope.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I heard that as far as web cancellation of NYT goes, the
| Cancel button magically appears if you enter your
| location to be in California.
| mekkkkkk wrote:
| If that's true that is real scummy. Someone should
| investigate with a VPN.
| lostlogin wrote:
| This is awful. If anyone from California could verify it
| would be interesting.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| It really does make you wonder that "the paper of record"
| deals in such immoral actions what else they are willing to
| compromise on. I seem to remember Pg being completely
| misrepresented by the same paper [1]. Maybe they are just
| really unethical people with a good brand.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1236975851255857152
| astrea wrote:
| My girlfriend and I were both able to cancel. The number
| worked for us, but we had to say no through a bunch of
| sales pitches before we got it successfully canceled.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > we had to say no through a bunch of sales pitches
|
| Just repeat the phrase "I want to cancel my subscription"
| to any question they ask. They'll get the message pretty
| quickly.
| jrockway wrote:
| I'm highly in favor of making this illegal. My credit card
| expired and I switched my NYT subscription from through
| their website to through Apple (so I could cancel), and
| they sent my account to collections! Working with the
| collections agency to get it removed was easy, however.
|
| I guess the law that I would be in favor of is twofold:
|
| 1) You must be able to cancel subscriptions from the same
| website that you created it from. After you cancel, the
| subscription must last until the end date. (So you aren't
| forced to set a calendar reminder for the day before.)
|
| 2) Sending an account to collections falsely should carry a
| 100x penalty. If they make a mistake and their billing
| system sends your account worth $300 to collections, they
| pay a $30,000 fine. Should motivate someone to write some
| unit tests for that.
| tobr wrote:
| > You must be able to cancel subscriptions from the same
| website that you created it from.
|
| More to the point, it should be required that
| canceling/downgrading is _as easy as or easier than_
| signing up /upgrading. Want to offer 1-click-buy, you
| also need to offer 1-click-cancel.
| amluto wrote:
| I would be in favor of a different approach: a merchant
| should not, under any circumstances, be able to remove
| money from an account, charge a credit card, or otherwise
| take money from someone without the _explicit_
| authorization of the customer. In this context, explicit
| means one of two things:
|
| 1. The customer intentionally authorized that specific
| transaction. A specific transaction means _one_
| transaction. If a merchant wants to use this approach,
| they need to ask for authorization each time they charge.
|
| 2. The merchant may register a subscription or other
| recurring charge arrangement with the customer's bank or
| card provider. The customer must explicitly authorize
| this registration at the time it occurs and may, by
| contacting their bank, revoke the authorization at any
| time. The merchant may not recreate the authorization
| without the customer re-authorizing it at the time of
| creation.
|
| Eventually, the whole pull model of money transfers needs
| to go away. Taking money from someone by knowing their
| account number is nonsensical and should not be possible.
| amaccuish wrote:
| >The merchant may register a subscription or other
| recurring charge arrangement with the customer's bank or
| card provider.
|
| An advantage of Direct Debits in the UK is that I see
| them all in my banking app and can cancel them
| individually. A company is legally required to gain my
| consent again before charging again.
| Dayshine wrote:
| Of course, just because you cancel your Direct Debit
| doesn't mean you aren't legally on the hook for that
| payment.
|
| They can still send demand letters and "send you to
| collections".
| nmca wrote:
| So I love this, but I imagine that all those VC funded
| subscription-for-x do not... (dollar shave, etc etc)
| sebmellen wrote:
| Though I'm skeptical of cryptocurrencies as a _market_ ,
| I'm very bullish on the technology long-term for use-
| cases like this. Having programmable money where every
| party is able to audit something like a smart contract
| and see how their deposited money will be treated is
| huge. We could effectively get rid of pull-model money
| transfers and instead relegate similar functionality to
| open smart contract pools.
| mLuby wrote:
| Even worse! Now you don't have protection from your
| credit card company not redress through the courts.
|
| You already have the ability to "audit" the EULA/ToS/PP;
| it's that link you never click next to the "I agree"
| button.
|
| The powerful (in money, size, skill, fame, strength,
| etc.) always try to (ab)use systems to bully the weak.
| Smart contracts only amplify their ability to do so.
|
| Why would a company, which (reasonably) declines to
| deploy its limited legal resources negotiating with each
| user, possibly be interested in deploying its limited
| engineering resources to negotiate a smart contract with
| each user--especially when one screw-up can "legally"
| bankrupt the company? (See The DAO.)
|
| If there can be no negotiation, the options are:
| 1. You reject their terms and don't use the service.
| 2. You accept their terms and legally use the service.
| 3. They accept your terms and you legally use the
| service. (Usually too risky/costly for them.) 4.
| You reject their terms and illegally use the service
| anyway.
|
| We could legalize option 4, but that is a _very_ bold
| move--the equivalent of the Chicxulub impact on legal and
| business practices.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think the explicit authorization is the contract you
| sign that allows for the subscription. It's already
| pretty risky to loan people money, and your system makes
| it even riskier. (Consider the business model of cloud
| providers; you agree to pay for whatever you use, and
| then they charge you for last month's usage. If you could
| just not pay, then the business wouldn't really be
| viable. You'd have to figure out what you're going to use
| in advance, and pre-pay, and the consequences for getting
| it wrong by 1 cent would be unnecessary downtime. Cloud
| providers of course let you pre-pay at a discount, but
| having both pre-pay and post-pay make a lot of sense.
| But, we're all paying extra because of the people that
| walk away at the end of the month and don't pay their
| bill.)
|
| It would be worthwhile to consider not letting "click
| agree" create a binding contract. I think I'm in favor of
| that.
|
| I agree that things like newspapers don't need to be a
| subscription or have a contract. On the first of the
| month they should just pop up a dialog that asks if you
| still want the subscription, and if so, it charges your
| card for 1 month. I would certainly like that, but it
| does carry a risk on my end -- if they go out of business
| on the second of the month, I'm stuck paying for 29 days
| of the subscription I can't use.
|
| Like I said, the big problem is not being able to cancel.
| That's why I buy subscriptions through Apple -- there's
| always a cancel button. I think we should make that
| mandatory for every subscription provider.
| Spivak wrote:
| This is literally what "sending you a bill" is. They
| don't need to have an upfront agreement to charge your
| card. They need an upfront agreement that you will pay
| for services used at the end of the month. This is
| standard invoicing that these companies already do just
| without automatically charging cards.
|
| When you pay your medical bills it's still an explicit
| payment.
| amluto wrote:
| I think there are a couple of issues. One is that most
| countries consider giant piles or fine print that no one
| reads to be binding contracts and that customers can't
| credibly negotiate them. The other is that it's far too
| easy for merchants to extract money from customers
| without the customers' consent.
|
| Attacking the latter might make a large difference even
| if the former remains unsolved. The New York Times can
| get away with making cancellation difficult because they
| have the power to unilaterally take money from their
| (former?) customers. But, if anyone could trivially
| revoke their authorization to charge them money, I doubt
| that the New York Times would actually try to sue or
| collect from their customers en masse. Sure, they could
| try, but that would be a fantastic way to piss everyone
| off and to recover very little money.
| awalGarg wrote:
| I'm always amazed reading that this isn't already the
| case in the US. In India, every charge requires SMS based
| 2fa. Starting a bank mandate (ECS/NACH) for automatic
| transfers needs me to physically sign a paper. It can be
| revoked any time by the user without any involvement of
| the receiving party, and can be done online as well.
| thechao wrote:
| I think unlimited recurring subscriptions should just not
| be allowed, period: all multipay plans should have a
| fixed & finite pay period, after which the service
| expires. Only the card holder has the unilateral right to
| re-establish the payments.
| mLuby wrote:
| What if the user wants to cancel before the term is up?
| If that's allowed, there won't be discounts for annual
| plans. (Maybe not a bad thing, but maybe inefficient.)
| consp wrote:
| I do not know how it is in the US, but where I live those
| automatic subscriptions are cancelable (and usually
| refundable) by the user via the bank or credit card company
| if the company collecting it is not responding. This is very
| easy in the first 56 days and a bit harder afterwards. They
| can retry to collect but you can keep doing it. The idea is
| you send them a official letter telling them you revoke your
| authorization which they have to do, not adhering to that
| request is their problem not yours. Depending on the contract
| this might trigger fines or require you to front the entire
| bill at once but for normal recurring subscriptions this is
| not an issue and otherwise should be reasonable (paying a
| 'fine' higher than the total sum is not allowed for
| instance).
| tobmlt wrote:
| Thanks for pointing this out!
|
| I wonder if someone can start a service to facilitate this
| for people. So many dark patterns, so many opportunities to
| ease the transaction costs/friction of disentangling? ;)
| judge2020 wrote:
| It's the same in the U.S. If you do this, the failed
| charges might be sent to collections agencies, but that
| doesn't usually matter much to lenders if it's a small
| subscription - although this $100/mo NBA charge might cause
| some issues.
| Phlarp wrote:
| American debit cards generally don't have these
| protections, but American credit cards absolutely do have
| robust consumer protection mechanisms.
|
| It's also a pretty big negative mark for merchants that get
| charge-backs issued against them, if just a small
| percentage of people used charge backs to cancel these
| "subscriptions" it would make their processing fees
| skyrocket or even get them dropped by the major processors
| the_snooze wrote:
| > literal prison time
|
| Yup
|
| https://twitter.com/javan/status/1357800714018443270
| darksaints wrote:
| Just watched that video, and I don't know what canary is, but
| I can guarantee you I will never use it. Fuck that.
| rawtxapp wrote:
| Just use Privacy's virtual cards to sign up for services. If a
| service doesn't let you cancel, just cancel the card itself.
| That's what I've been doing.
|
| Of course, it's a different story if you signed some kind of
| contract, but for the pay-montly kind of things, it's a no
| brainer. You also keep your real cards number private in case
| the service gets hacked and Privacy doesn't seem to check the
| name, so you can give a fake name to the service.
| fpig wrote:
| This looks like a great service!
|
| Edit: crap, looks like it's US-only :/
| ykat7 wrote:
| If you're in the UK, EU, New Zealand, Australia, or
| Singapore, I found out yesterday that Wise (TransferWise)
| customers get 3 virtual cards free of charge [1][2].
|
| I'd be interested to hear about any other UK/EU firms
| offering similar.
|
| [1] https://wise.com/gb/blog/shop-safely-virtually-anywhere
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27006326
| egwor wrote:
| Revolut supports one time cards... provided you're happy
| with Revolut.
| rovr138 wrote:
| Every time you sign up for a monthly service, there's an
| agreement and terms which is a contract between both parties.
|
| While this works, depending on the service and what it says,
| they can send your debt to collectors.
|
| And that's why there needs to exist regulation around it.
| shkkmo wrote:
| If a company makes it difficult to cancel, you can always talk
| to your card issuer. They are required to allow you to stop all
| future payments to a recipient but may force you to request
| this in writing.
|
| However in my experience, you can usually accomplish it with a
| phone call and can often dispute the most recent charge as
| well.
|
| IMHO, chargebacks are the best way to fight back against
| companies that use dark patterns in their billing/cancelation
| process.
| duxup wrote:
| Would be nice to see some regulation / rules on cancellations
| of reoccurring payments / services.
|
| It's not like it would have to be super technical, most judges
| would have no problem interpreting it.
| dqpb wrote:
| The New York Times does this. Unforgivable.
| ls65536 wrote:
| As a general rule, it ought to be no more difficult or time-
| consuming to cancel a service than it was to sign up for it in
| the first place.
| plorg wrote:
| Audible does not allow you to cancel through the app, and
| cancelling via the web takes you through two extra pages of
| customer retention, "Continue Cancelling", or similar.
|
| I haven't used the Scribd app, but cancelling the service
| through the web similarly takes more than one extra page of
| customer retention "special offer" pages.
| elliekelly wrote:
| I signed up for a one month "free" trial of Scribd. I noticed
| they charged my card but I (wrongly) assumed it was a pre-
| authorization that would fall off before it ever actually hit
| my account. I liked Scribd okay but I felt I hadn't really
| given it a fair shake during my trial month and figured I'd
| pay for this month, too and then decide whether I'd keep it.
| Woke up yesterday and checked my card statement for the month
| only to find out Scribd charged me for my "free" trial. Since
| I didn't notice until my free month was up they charged me
| for this month, too. I cancelled this morning and had to go
| through one "special offer" page (for "Scribd Lite" @
| $4.99/month IIRC).
|
| I'm SOL on this month's charges but you'd better believe I
| disputed the original charge with Amex. Scribd even sent me a
| "receipt" for my "free" trial showing a total of $0.00 at the
| exact time they charged me $9.99.
|
| It's just bad business. I should have heeded the many
| warnings about Scribd's deceptive billing and now they've
| added yet another unhappy customer who will complain about
| their shady business practices at every opportunity I get.
| ascotan wrote:
| Good example of this is where you can only unsubscribe via
| phone so they can route you to a 'specialist' that attempts to
| talk you out of it. i.e. you can subscribe via software but but
| unsubscribe via phone.
| itisit wrote:
| And getting a new credit card used to be a reliable failsafe to
| stop getting billed for a hard-to-cancel service, but not so if
| the subscription agreement allows for automatic updating:
|
| https://twocents.lifehacker.com/heres-why-everyone-already-h...
| deepzn wrote:
| po*nhub is almost criminal at this to be honest smh
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Facebook and Instagram forcing users to enable tracking. Also
| network effects and how to combat them would be interesting.
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm really curious how you can outlaw dark patterns.
| ratww wrote:
| The same way one can outlaw murder and other crimes. Not sure I
| understand the question.
|
| Outlawing means it can still happen, but you have to enforce,
| investigate, catch the perpetrator, go to trial, and punish in
| a way. Or just apply a fine that you can appeal.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Dark patterns aren't fundamentally new, they've just recently
| taken on a new form in software. An example of an old dark
| pattern was that a company would simply mail people unsolicited
| merchandise, and then bill them an inflated price for it if it
| wasn't returned. In that case, the (US) law was changed to
| specify that any such unsolicited shipment is presumed to be a
| gift and the sender is not entitled to payment for it.
|
| The FTC has been dealing with this kind of crap for over a
| century. The key is that this is in the context of advertising
| and trade practices, not viewpoint or artistic style. You'll
| still be able to include fictional dark patterns in your post-
| cyberpunk visual novel if you want to.
| salawat wrote:
| Yessssss!
|
| It's about damn time. Time to sit down, do some research, and
| write up some papers!
| cj wrote:
| I'm assuming this is sarcasm? What do you propose be done
| instead of doing research and writing papers?
| burnished wrote:
| Why would this be sarcasm? Wouldn't a well researched paper
| be the ideal public comment? I don't understand how the top
| comment here is so unpopular.
| salawat wrote:
| Nope. Not sarcasm. I'm going through each of the kiddo's
| tablets and cataloging every dark pattern, in every game.
| Then I'm writing up the details of our nightmare with PayPal,
| the couple of financial institutions I've had nightmares
| getting things closed out from, and possibly even chucking in
| a few examples of contact template language that I think
| qualify like "To opt out, send a hand-signed letter to yada-
| yada...".
|
| I'm so tired of malicious compliance, hidden or disguised
| unsubscribe links, and complete disregard for the burden
| imposed on consumers.
|
| Gacha games, loot boxes, that type of thing. Basically
| everything listed here.
|
| https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3400901
|
| but also
|
| https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern
|
| or monitored here:
|
| https://www.darkpattern.games/
|
| I've come to realize these types of "Dark Patterns" exist in
| way more than just UI's. Businesses often find ways of
| leveraging the fruits of them for alternate revenue streams.
|
| I'm sure there are academics out there who'll nail down the
| white paper aspect, butI tend to try to supply a boots on the
| ground eye-view since I spend a lot of time trying to teach
| people what to look out for, and why it's a problem.
| splithalf wrote:
| Not doing those things and achieving the same outcome at no
| cost.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| It was surprisingly easy to register a comment. For those of you
| commenting here, consider clicking through and comment there.
| dqpb wrote:
| How does the FTC consume these public comments? I just read a few
| of them and the quality is very low - rambling, unspecific, non-
| sensical.
| [deleted]
| bakatubas wrote:
| Honestly all websites should support a no-script, static version
| to prevent 90% of the webs BS. We used to be able to view sites
| with JavaScript disabled and actually things would work.
|
| Also, instead of arbitrary cookies why not standardize
| authentication/authorization security mechanisms to avoid having
| those stupid cookie pop ups.
|
| At this point there are common web pattern which separates the
| essentials from the BS--so why not get rid of the BS and keep the
| good stuff?
| pja wrote:
| Hah. Literally an hour ago I fat-fingered the "Sign up to Amazon
| Music!" button in the Amazon Music App on my phone whilst putting
| the phone in my pocket.
|
| To be fair to Amazon though, they do let you cancel the
| subscription online with no bullshit & you still get to keep the
| 90 day free trial -- presumably they hope you'll like the service
| enough to decide to pay for it anyway.
|
| (The worst example I know of this "single button press sign-up"
| pattern was Nassim Taleb accidentally signing up to pay for a
| software upgrade to his Tesla in the Tesla App that cost $1000s &
| having no way to undo it except shouting loudly at Tesla / Elon
| Musk on Twitter.)
| andy81 wrote:
| Let's not give Amazon a free ride, cancelling the Prime trial
| was some real bullshit last time I tried.
|
| The option was hidden behind several pages of "Here's what
| you'll miss out on" and "You still have x days remaining, why
| not check out these shows" and "confirm" buttons with slightly
| different position/text/color.
| ajaimk wrote:
| Every OneTrust pop-up for GDPR I've seen is using multiple dark
| patterns to trick you into giving access to more than essential
| cookies.
| OliverGilan wrote:
| i think there are some rather great comments/examples of Dark
| Patterns in this thread and I just want to remind everyone to
| also submit those as public comment to the FTC! Just posting it
| on HN won't get it in front of the people who can make a
| difference!
| tobiasSoftware wrote:
| The dark pattern I've been seeing a lot lately is billing
| services trying to make you go paperless. I've seen all sorts of
| dark patterns around it, from subtle things such as it being the
| second of three options where you need to check options 1 and 3
| every month, to it literally being checked by default and buried
| in the middle of a "we are just checking up on you to make sure
| you have all your options set correctly" splash screen.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Genuine question: why'd you want bills to be shipped on paper?
| Is there some legal requirement to keep paper records in the
| USA and you don't want to have to own a printer or something?
|
| Every time I get a paper bill I'm annoyed, like, just send me
| an email, then I drag it into the right folder and it's done.
| Speedy, sortable, searchable. (Of course you will want to have
| back-ups, but one generally wants backups for one's files
| anyway.) The weirdest instance of this is my electricity
| company that has a fairly high price but also invests in
| renewable energy and they send me _paper_ bills. Like, they of
| all companies should get that I don 't want someone to drive to
| my house to deliver information that, usually, I already knew
| about anyway. Dutch tax office also takes their time to send me
| letters from abroad... _two weeks after_ I already received it
| digitally and opened it. They can see I read it on their
| website, but they still post a physical letter more than a week
| later. And it always contains "you owe us nothing & we owe you
| nothing" because I don't live/work there anymore. So stupid, I
| hate letters, so I'm really curious why you'd want this!
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yup, I've been fooled into going paperless on my utility bills
| a number of times. No idea how I did it, AND they often get
| "confused" when you want to restore paper service. I've had to
| call PG&E a number of times recently and they still are failing
| to send paper bills.
| kerng wrote:
| I dislike it when companies allow you to sign up via mobile, but
| then dont allow you to cancel via the mobile app.
|
| I had this with Hello Fresh, where I had to log in on web to
| cancel (which I had never done before) - seemed quite annoying
| and I decided to never use the service again for that reason
| alone.
| ModernMech wrote:
| I don't know if this counts as a dark pattern but it really
| ticked me off when this happened: when YouTube on iPad changed to
| require a paid subscription to play content while the screen is
| turned off. What kind of fresh hell is that? I have to pay to use
| a hardware feature? What's the next move, requiring me to
| purchase a subscription to adjust the volume or the screen
| brightness?
|
| Actually this reminds me of another annoyance: playing ads at a
| higher volume than the content. I tend to listen to content very
| softly to prevent hearing loss, and whenever an ad comes on I
| find myself turning the volume down, only to turn it up again
| when the content comes back.
| sunshineforever wrote:
| Thank you for posting this because that's the dark pattern that
| I was trying to remember myself. This one has aggravated me
| beyond anything else on the entire internet. I hope for the
| return of newpipe soon.
| [deleted]
| dclusin wrote:
| I think the biggest dark pattern is social platforms holding the
| browser hostage instead of opening content in the users native
| browser app. Social media sites are built on user generated
| content. By keeping users in the app like this it puts the
| website at an inherent disadvantage and prevents them from
| providing a compelling first class experience that might compete
| with facebook for attention, due to their inherent parent child
| ui design.
|
| Anti trust regulators came after Microsoft for deep bundling of
| functionality of browser and OS and I think they should do the
| same for facebook, google, reddit, etc. for the web view.
| devit wrote:
| The Facebook app on my Android device doesn't do this.
| fpig wrote:
| What is _good_ about web sites trying to force users to use
| their app instead? That itself one of the worst dark patterns
| out there.
|
| Edit: If my comment looks confusing, the comment I replied to
| has been edited. "compelling first class experience" is really
| a more vague term for "web sites being able to push their app
| on users"
| dclusin wrote:
| While I agree this is a regrettable practice, the social
| media sites in question do the same thing too. The argument
| that Facebook is acting in users best interest by preventing
| websites from spamming users to use an app is incredibly self
| serving and not really all that believable.
|
| I too wish it would go away, but both sites not having equal
| access the users in a similar way is anti competitive imo.
| Especially for businesses who increasingly need to
| participate on these platforms due to the fact that so many
| of their customers use their services.
| fpig wrote:
| I agree that this practice should go away - if you believe
| that, then the goal should be to eliminate this shady
| practice entirely, not try to make it _more_ prevalent like
| you were suggesting before editing your comment.
| dclusin wrote:
| Agreed, sorry for editing after you replied.
| bogwog wrote:
| > What is good about web sites trying to force users to use
| their app instead?
|
| If you're asking from the point of view of the social media
| site, the "good" thing is that a native app can steal much
| more personal information than a website.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| I wonder of loot boxes in mobile and other video games would
| count? Seems like it ought to.
| dqv wrote:
| Great I'm going to submit one about how the Apple iOS store
| forces you to get rid of your old devices and buy new ones.
|
| They make it extremely inconvenient to find out which apps are
| supported on your device. They don't hide the apps that aren't,
| so you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see if
| it's compatible or not.
| jb1991 wrote:
| > you are forced to download the app and wait to check to see
| if it's compatible or no
|
| The App Store doesn't let me download apps that are not
| compatible with my device.
| dqv wrote:
| >The App Store doesn't let me download apps that are not
| compatible with my device.
|
| Let's not split hairs over this.
|
| I just got rid of my iPad that does. You tap "get" on the app
| and after doing _something_ for 5-10 seconds it pops up a
| modal that says it 's not compatible.
|
| Why was the app store showing apps to me that are not
| compatible or, rather, why was there no way to filter out the
| ones that are not compatible?
| bogwog wrote:
| > Why was the app store showing apps to me that are not
| compatible or, rather, why was there no way to filter out
| the ones that are not compatible?
|
| To show you what you're missing out by not buying the
| latest iPad
| lostlogin wrote:
| I'm not sure what I want with this - on MacOS it's goddamn
| infuriating trying to download an OS that you want to
| install on a machine that isn't the one you are browsing
| from.
|
| You can't just use the App Store and end up doing all sorts
| of horrible things.
|
| I've commented on this before and had people send me links
| that show you can do it in the US App Store, but I can't
| from NZ.
| dqv wrote:
| Oh are you talking about how you how certain things are
| hidden from search in the macOS app store? I found that
| annoying too. I had an old machine that I wanted to
| upgrade to Catalina and searching through the app store
| gave no results. Some how I found this link[0] and it
| magically brings me to macOS Catalina in the app store.
| Why didn't it come up in the search?
|
| [0]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211683
| wyre wrote:
| You aren't being forced to do anything. Apple already supports
| their devices much longer than the industry standard. If you
| don't like Apple stop using their products.
| dqv wrote:
| Everything you said is true but it still has no bearing on
| the fact that it's a dark pattern to make it inconvenient to
| have an old device. They have the means and technology to
| filter out incompatible apps, but they've decided not provide
| it.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I don't think that is a dark pattern.
| dqv wrote:
| Could you elaborate on why you don't think it's a dark
| pattern?
| jrockway wrote:
| I think this falls a little below the level of what should be a
| federal crime. It's an annoying usability issue, but ultimately
| which devices are supported is up to individual developers and
| not Apple. (It cuts both ways: there are some apps that aren't
| updated to run on the newest devices. So you could take that as
| Apple encouraging you to keep your old device and to NOT
| upgrade.)
|
| Think about it this way: you want to haul Apple into federal
| court because they poorly cache app store search results on a
| CDN. The DoJ will have to hire new expert attorneys to
| prosecute this, and it could take years. That means they either
| stop prosecuting other federal crimes while working on that
| one, or your taxes increase to pay the new attorneys necessary
| for this case. The ultimate outcome for Apple will be paying
| some tiny fine that probably is less than a year's salary for a
| software engineer and being forced to fix their CDN setup,
| while the taxpayers pay millions of dollars. Best case. The
| worst case could be years of legal costs for the government,
| and absolutely nothing in return for the taxpayers.
|
| I think you have to choose your battles, and this isn't the
| pick. Consumers aren't getting severely fucked, it's just kind
| of annoying to some people. We can use our limited tax dollars
| more effectively.
| dqv wrote:
| >So you could take that as Apple encouraging you to keep your
| old device and to NOT upgrade.
|
| Does Apple show you apps that won't run on the newest
| devices/OS versions in the app store?
|
| >It's an annoying usability issue, but ultimately which
| devices are supported is up to individual developers and not
| Apple.
|
| But Apple runs the store, so the onus on them is to present
| the store in a way that gives me what is compatible with my
| device. When I go to the physical store, I don't expect to
| find kid's sizes in the adult clothing section (and vice
| versa). Even if the "clothing developer" in question only
| makes child sized clothes.
|
| >prosecute
|
| Whoa, hold on. We're in a thread asking for public comment on
| dark patterns.
|
| Look at point 6 in the event announcement PDF:
|
| > What harms do dark patterns pose to consumers or
| competition? For example, do certain dark patterns lead
| consumers to _purchase products or services that they might
| not otherwise have purchased_ , pay for products or services
| without knowing or intending to, provide personal
| information, _waste time_ , _spend more on a particular
| product or service_ , remain enrolled in a service they might
| otherwise cancel, or develop harmful usage habits?
|
| (emphasis mine)
|
| >Consumers aren't getting severely fucked, it's just kind of
| annoying to some people.
|
| Sorry, I'm not understanding your point. Most dark patterns
| _don 't_ severely fuck anyone and are just kind of annoying
| to some people. I think that's the point of this FTC public
| comment - to get a consensus on what dark patterns are.
| [deleted]
| saagarjha wrote:
| Isn't there a literal "Compatibility" section in the App Store
| listing where it tells you if the app will work on your device
| or not?
| dqv wrote:
| As a user, I should be able to have the experience of
| browsing an app store with only apps that are compatible with
| my device and OS version. As a user and average consumer, it
| was not obvious to me that there was a compatibility section
| at all because I have to scroll past reviews and app privacy
| to get that information.
| vultour wrote:
| There's a "Compatibility" section under each app which tells
| you whether it works on your device. You can also click on it
| so it tells you exactly which OS versions are supported.
| dqv wrote:
| So instead of filtering it out or graying out the "get"
| button, I need to click on the link in the app store and find
| the compatibility section (the last part of the page) to find
| out if it's compatible?
|
| That's a dark pattern.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| It's been a looooong time since I've had this issue, but I
| distinctly remember the "get" being grayed out (for
| example, gps-dependent apps on a non gps-enabled iPad). Has
| this regressed?
| dqv wrote:
| Yes. It's regressed. This video [0] is an example of what
| happens, EXCEPT on mine the pause was considerably longer
| before the "unable to purchase" pop up came up.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/lMMrU732w6Q?t=82 (and if you look
| at the comments, you can see that I'm not the only
| consumer frustrated by this issue)
| zkid18 wrote:
| Unpopular opinion, but as a developer I'm OK with using dark
| patterns for a certain projects when it comes to pricing, but not
| to churn prevention.
|
| In niches with low margins and high competition, dark patterns
| are one of the few chances to survive and make money (ticket
| aggregators, hotel aggregations)
|
| The user can pay $10 or $15 depends on how you communicate the
| value almost with the same set of features. However, for the
| product, the difference affects the business model and the unit
| economy dramatically.
|
| Of course, subscription cancelling penalties sucks and should be
| ban.
| jfk13 wrote:
| > I'm OK with using dark patterns for a certain projects when
| it comes to pricing
|
| You're right, it's an unpopular opinion. If you're in a niche
| where you have to use dark patterns to survive, grow a
| conscience and find a different niche.
| ck425 wrote:
| I'm not sure if this counts as a dark pattern but any system with
| a notification dot should allow you to disable it or change the
| colour on it.
| da39a3ee wrote:
| This is in need of some context. What is a Dark Pattern and why
| is it capitalized?
| anoncow wrote:
| The FTC should create a set of guidelines named for example "Good
| Software Design Practices" (either directly or through an
| industry standards body) which developers can follow voluntarily.
| Companies or bodies should then be able to rate software
| objectively based on the GSDP using a lay-public friendly star
| rating. The rating could be further broken up into sub-ratings
| for specific design sub-topics.
|
| This could then become a default way for companies to self-
| appraise their software on distribution platforms. Anyone
| including distribution platforms should be able to validate such
| ratings based on certain objective criteria.
| thysultan wrote:
| MacOS keeps asking me to update software every night. dark
| pattern. lawsuit incoming...
| pcarolan wrote:
| I think a more effective route forward here is for places like YC
| to set standards for their portfolio companies. Only the
| strongest investors can do this, but once they do, it will setup
| a new playing field and the YC brand could mean 'no dark patterns
| here' in the way that buying an Apple product signifies quality
| hardware and privacy. It could act as an 'integrity' label that
| companies purchasing software would use when evaluating new
| products. YC companies are better than most at this, but I've
| seen a few bad actors lately that have caused me to question
| whether its true across the board.
| novok wrote:
| Consumers do not know what YC is, and I'm not sure if YC wants
| to become a consumer brand certification.
| bogwog wrote:
| I used this site for years without knowing what YC was.
|
| EDIT: also, I still don't 100% know what it is. Afaik, it's
| like shark tank but IRL for people in silicon valley.
| pcarolan wrote:
| YC, like all companies, is a brand. It is already expressed
| by alumni when applying for a job. It is sought by employers
| as a mark of validation that the person works hard and fast
| and knows how to innovate.
|
| As YC scales and graduates more companies, they want to
| optimize their return on investment. Those companies that
| graduate from YC want to make sure their companies raise
| capital at a premium when future fundraising and ultimately
| IPOing or being acquired. The YC network is a thing in the VC
| community and a mark of a high opportunity investment.
|
| Today, some purchasing managers are aware of its alumni
| companies and use it as a litmus that the company is cutting
| edge and innovative. Maybe most don't. Since sales ultimately
| lead to higher company valuations, perhaps this is something
| YC would want to focus on?
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