[HN Gopher] Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks
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Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks
Author : elsewhen
Score : 227 points
Date : 2024-03-28 08:28 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| fy20 wrote:
| The part about the countdown clock for delivery dates is
| interesting.
|
| Amazon is not in my country, but Amazon DE does ship here for not
| too much. It's often cheaper and sometimes even quicker to order
| from Amazon DE than a local e-retailer (they often don't have
| items in stock locally, and need to ship from a warehouse in
| another country).
|
| I wanted to purchase some items, and it gave the usual "order in
| the next 8 hours for delivery on Sunday". I wanted to add some
| other items later, and forgot about it. I finally got around to
| placing the order two days later. It gave me a delivery date
| of... the same Sunday.
| mdrzn wrote:
| I've never had any issues with the countdown clock; it's
| usually for orders that I want to receive quickly, and it tells
| me "if you order within the next 2 hours, it will arrive
| tomorrow". So, I doubt that it's a dark pattern (at least in
| Italy). Then again, if third-party sellers are using this
| system as a dark pattern, that's a different matter.
| MatekCopatek wrote:
| Judging by the parent comment, the dark part is the fact that
| it might be fake pressure. As in - it's true that it will
| arrive tomorrow if you order within the next 2 hrs, but it
| will actually arrive tomorrow even if you take 4 hrs.
| aendruk wrote:
| Isn't the explanation just that delivery estimates have a
| wide margin of error? To _guarantee_ delivery by a target
| date the order must be placed by the beginning of the
| margin, but if you order within the margin there's some
| probability of getting that date by chance.
|
| To explain the two estimates days apart both returning the
| same Sunday, consider that the week is heterogeneous; maybe
| some regional hop is available specifically on Saturday
| regardless of how early you order.
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure, but the regulator in this case is making an
| argument that it's creating an unfair pressure to make
| you purchase a thing, and that the timer is consistently
| shorter than it needs to be.
|
| It's the same thing as going on a website and it says
| "order within next 30 minutes for a 50% discount" and
| then you come back an hour later and it still says the
| same thing - it creates an incentive on you to purchase
| by creating an illusion of urgency. It's the illusion
| part that the regulators have a problem with.
| mdrzn wrote:
| I mean usually the cut-off time is to "order by 8 PM to get
| the product delivered the next day". I'm not convinced that
| setting the order deadline at 8 PM instead of 10 PM
| significantly boosts sales. E-commerce platforms are full
| of dark patterns, but on Amazon (perhaps because I go there
| when I already know what I want to buy), I haven't noticed
| many. Another potential dark pattern is that the lowest
| price is shown for offers with Prime included, while
| sometimes there are lower prices available for the same
| product shipped without Prime. However, even in this case,
| I don't have any complaints. Not defending Amazon
| obviously, but since I pay for Prime, I definitely want the
| fastest shipment possible.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The dark pattern is actually the opposite. People who
| ordered in the next 2 hours might _not_ get it the next
| day. If you tell someone "buy it in the next 2 hours to
| receive it tomorrow", you better make sure they get it
| tomorrow.
| tzs wrote:
| I don't see how that is necessarily a dark pattern. It
| would be a dark pattern if they were saying that when
| they knew it would not make it in time.
|
| But if most of the time they do make the deadline, and
| the times that they do not are caused by problems that
| arose unexpectedly after the order was places, it is not
| a dark pattern.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > and the times that they do not are caused by problems
| that arose unexpectedly after the order was places, it is
| not a dark pattern
|
| I think the contention here is that they intentionally
| overcommitted. One would have to see the statistics on
| how often they miss the promised timeline.
| arkey wrote:
| If you, like me, only go to Amazon when you've already
| decided to buy a certain thing, then you probably just stay
| with the "will arrive tomorrow" part.
|
| However the countdown could add some pressure if you're still
| deciding on buying something or not, in the form of "now or
| never FOMO".
| Zigurd wrote:
| I suppose discovery, or even a study of whether the delivery
| countdown matters to actual delivery, in a case like this is
| enough to categorize it as a dark pattern. If it can be shown
| to not matter to actual delivery time, what other purpose
| does it serve?
| throw_a_grenade wrote:
| Polish official release linked in TFA
| (https://uokik.gov.pl/31-mln-zl-kary-dla-amazon) hints that
| the problem with that clock was, it wasn't actually a
| guarantee, because Amazon could have just cancelled the
| order. That it can just cancel the order based on some
| technicality (how Amazon defined conclusion of contract) is
| also illegal in itself.
| Ekaros wrote:
| For Finland it seems they time their shipping by arrival date.
| So if arrival date is bit away, they only ship a few days
| later. But it will hit the arrival window.
| duxup wrote:
| It doesn't strike me as particularly unusual for the clock to
| give one time, and then a different time later. A lot of
| factors might go into making promises and each time they're
| evaluated variables may be different.
|
| I might give an ETA for some code, say 3 days, then do
| something else and find an easier way to do the task I was
| asked about earlier, dude to happenstance or even lower demands
| on my time ... so that later when asked again I might give an
| even even earlier ETA.
| hnbad wrote:
| It sounds like Amazon (in Poland at least) has been playing it
| fast and loose with "eventual consistency" but violated the law
| by basing legally binding claims on the unreliable data. Selling
| goods that are already out of stock only to then cancel the order
| later, or indicating a false time pressure to purchase in order
| to meet a delivery date, etc, all sound like they could as well
| be genuine mistakes. Amazon just happens to be too big for that
| to be a valid excuse.
| jgeada wrote:
| Except they do still charge you first before figuring out they
| won't actually ship you the goods as promised. It is the
| charging and then not delivering that is the problem.
| rafram wrote:
| Do they? In the US, Amazon only actually charges your card
| once the items ship. Until then it's just a pre-
| authorization.
| chihuahua wrote:
| It seems bizarre to hear about these problems in Poland.
| Amazon had all this stuff figured out a long time ago.
| Which is why I order from Amazon all the time - it works
| reliably, 99.99% of the time.
|
| And they understand how to properly package things, which
| is what I would expect after they've shipped a billions
| packages over the past 25+ years. When I order from Target
| or Vitacost, there's a 25% chance that they throw things in
| a box, add a single inflated plastic bag, and ship it.
| Glass jars arrive smashed, shampoo bottles crack open and
| leak over the other items, etc. It's like day 1 for
| Amazon's competition in terms of packaging.
| gambiting wrote:
| Nope, in Poland(and in UK as well) it charges you
| immediately, unless the item is specifically marked as pre-
| order(like new unreleased yet games and films - those get
| charged when they ship, everything else gets charged the
| moment of order). I've ordered a new router from Amazon few
| weeks ago, it was showing as "shipping 5th of April" (they
| were on backorder I guess) but they charged my card
| straight away.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| According to the gov investigator a big part of the "darkness"
| in this case were A's terms of service. They moved the moment
| of entering the legal sale agreement well after the customer
| could expect from their web interaction.
| belter wrote:
| Can Poland please fine the hell of Zoom, for the darkest pattern
| of pretending you need to install a client to join a meeting. And
| only after a few seconds, show at the end of the page you can
| join with a browser?
| bmmayer1 wrote:
| Until this moment I had no earthly idea you could join a Zoom
| call from a browser. Good on them for their evil genius design
| team :-p
| belter wrote:
| "PSA: Yes you can join a Zoom meeting in the browser" -
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/20/psa-yes-you-can-join-a-
| zoo...
|
| "Zoom's forced app is irresponsible" -
| https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/03/zooms-forced-app-is-
| irrespo...
|
| Shady patterns mean shady company
| wubrr wrote:
| I used zoom in browser before using the apps.. and the
| annoying dark patterns basically pushed me to avoid zoom
| whenever I can at this point.
|
| A lot of these kinds of dark patterns sacrifice long term
| user satisfaction and brand reputation for short-term gains
| in questionable internal metrics (metrics that are often tied
| to bonuses for people who couldn't care less about the long-
| term success of the company or its customers).
| chihuahua wrote:
| I do not understand why people think Zoom is so good, and
| why companies pay money to use it. The app is so annoying.
| (At least on MacOS) it splits everything into many
| different windows that end up on different screens and it's
| so annoying having to scan all my screens to find the piece
| of the UI that lets me start screen sharing. Whenever I
| join a Zoom meeting from the Calendar, it first pops open a
| browser tab, and then that opens the Zoom app. In the year
| 2024, why can't it open the Zoom app directly? Surely one
| app can start a process to run another app?
| erikerikson wrote:
| I suspect it's two factors. The first is that it's not
| produced by a major and statistically we like an
| underdog. The second is that they made a video client
| that actually worked when all the majors under invested
| and produced clients with serious issues. From there, the
| market is sticky. It has worn a bit though, hasn't it?
| nextos wrote:
| Before it was more evident you could join from your browser.
|
| It's just WebRTC, like Google Meet, Jitsi, etc.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Is this something specific to Poland. I join Zoom calls via a
| browser (on a PC) all the time - it was not at all hard to
| figure out.
| itslennysfault wrote:
| No, just tested it out (in the US). I honestly had no idea
| there was a web client at all because of the pattern OP is
| talking about.
|
| When I clicked the zoom link it opens a browser window and
| pops up a system dialog to launch the zoom app. After I hit
| "cancel" on that dialog I was on a page with a large "Launch
| Meeting" button (and no link to use the web version). Then, I
| clicked the "Launch Meeting" button and it opened the same
| system dialog again. Then, after I clicked cancel on that
| dialog a small link appeared at the bottom that says: "Having
| issues with Zoom Client? Join from Your Browser"
| nolongerthere wrote:
| That's so interesting, I've known about it from the very
| beginning of my introduction to zoom, back at the start of
| the pandemic when zoom was becoming ubiquitous someone
| released a chrome extension to always use the web client.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| What if you open it in incognito mode? I haven't had to use
| Zoom for a while, but last time I did, it would
| automatically download an exe/pkg when opening the page.
| wackget wrote:
| Zoom is terrible for this, but it's also sometimes the fault of
| the meeting organiser. There's a setting in the Zoom admin
| panel which allows admins to enable/disable the option of
| joining from the browser (or there used to be, at least).
|
| If you don't see the join from browser link even after jumping
| through Zoom's dark pattern hoops, ask the meeting admin to
| enable it.
| dixie_land wrote:
| This chrome extension is a lifesaver:
| https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xoom-redirector/oc...
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| PSA: just click the "open in app" link (which won't do anything
| since you don't have the app installed) and the "actually open
| in browser" link will immediately appear.
| paulddraper wrote:
| That seems...excessive.
|
| Being fined for not offering an obvious web-only client.
| jgwil2 wrote:
| Hmm, I mean I hate patterns like this but also there are like a
| million apps out there that don't have a web client at all (not
| to mention the ones that do support web but constantly display
| popups saying "x is better in the app"), so it would seem odd
| to punish Zoom for this while letting all those other companies
| carry on.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| And still, Zoom's "annotate" feature is not available in web
| version, although there is absolutely no technical reason for
| that.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Bizarre. Poland isn't a big market with Amazon, we have our own
| local monopoly in this sector called Allegro.
|
| edit: ok this is done by UOKiK, a consumer protection agency.
| This agency has supposedly been doing a stellar job keeping an
| eye on everything from banking to e-commerce sector.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Polish Amazon is such in a weird spot.
|
| Compared to Allegro, it has close to no offers, and search
| engine. Just. Doesn't. Work.
| kolinko wrote:
| +1. When in Poland I use Allegro all the time - way more
| reliable than Amazon.pl. Not as good as Amazon in the states
| though.
|
| My friends who moved back from the Bay Area still prefer to
| use Amazon, but they use Amazon.de instead - similar shipping
| times, and much better selection and reliability.
| chihuahua wrote:
| Not sure if this is still the case, but Amazon.de used to
| use fulfillment centers in Poland to deliver to Germany. So
| if you're in Poland and ordering from Amazon.de, your order
| could very well be delivered from Poland to Poland.
| gambiting wrote:
| In fact there were 3 massive Amazon fullfilment centres
| in Poland before Amazon.pl even launched lol. It's a
| weird(but very interesting) market with its own big
| players that neither Amazon nor ebay managed to compete
| against.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Amazon's search in Poland is atrocious. I only get
| international offers where shipping costs are higher than
| good's price. What the hell?
| voytec wrote:
| amazon.pl doesn't have English version. Auto-translated
| titles and descriptions are atrocious.
|
| amazon.de on the other hand has English version and stuff is
| sent from warehouses in Poland anyway.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > stellar
|
| I'm not sure enough to know if that's sarcastic, but the
| circumstances make me wonder if this was to promote local
| competitors or score political points.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| No no, I'm serious. I have friends in banking who had
| experiences coming under UOKiK scrutiny and they claim that
| it really has it's shit together. I have no doubt that there
| is dysfunction in the system, just not when it comes to
| regulation of this sector apparently.
| jakubadamw wrote:
| I am honestly baffled Amazon hasn't found a way to compete with
| Allegro. I am happy about it, but also baffled. Allegro's
| customer experience is just stellar, whereas Amazon's interface
| continues to give the impression that it's still a bunch of
| widgets rendered by a hundred microservices and glued together
| without any elegant cohesion in mind. It's as if little has
| changed since the famous Steve Yegge's letter.
| slowmotiony wrote:
| It's even more baffling that Amazon.pl has one of the worst
| customer support I've ever seen while Amazon.de is a total
| opposite - an increadibly pleasant experience and packages
| almost always arrive on the next day.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| I'm no fan of either - Allegro has Amazon executives and
| nearly identical Prime-free shipping strategy. Pretty sure
| Allegro has the same effect of monopolizing and driving up
| prices as Amazon has.
|
| I find the eBay-esque artifact interface absurd. It's likely
| Amazon hasn't found a way because an environment that isn't a
| monopoly isn't attractive to begin with for that business
| model.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Nuke subscribe & save from orbit.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| I always love it when it suggests that I should get a
| subscription to a durable good.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I enjoy the fine print which says, "your subscription price
| can change".
|
| Which of course it does. There is a lot of price fuckery
| going on, where they lower it to drive subscriptions and then
| raise the price above the average price.
|
| I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted, because subscribe &
| save is obviously a dark pattern along the lines of "entice
| subscription, get people to forget about it" only with
| variable pricing on top of it.
| spike021 wrote:
| Can the NYT be next? (In the US of course)
|
| Recently I tried unsubscribing from The Athletic (now owned by
| NYT).
|
| They use every dark pattern in the book and multiple times also
| make it seem like you finally were successful only for no real
| confirmation message.
| alephknoll wrote:
| Don't know why you are getting downvoted. NYT and many
| publishers are notorious with their dark patterns to keep you
| around.
|
| The only company that I know of that makes it easier to
| 'unsubscribe' than to 'subscribe' is netflix. I couldn't
| believe how easy it was. Didn't have to call them and have them
| guilt trip me into staying. Or chat with someone or some AI.
| Just cancel. Though they do email you deals from time to time.
| But even then only every few weeks or so.
| croemer wrote:
| Excellent, consumer protection orgs should do this much more
| frequently. Often they are the only ones with standing to sue in
| these types of cases.
| zzz999 wrote:
| Good
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I see digital sovereignty of various localities cracking down on
| big tech being one of the impending battlefields of the next
| decade.
| akkad33 wrote:
| There's this fitness app called madmuscles
| https://madmuscles.com/ that takes dark patterns to the extreme.
| It has to be seen to be believed. I don't know how they get away
| with it
| Animats wrote:
| Strange that Amazon would do this. The original selling point of
| their "one-click" system was that it had undo. Everybody else was
| requiring lots of confirmation, while Amazon was just click and
| go, with the opportunity to undo mistakes.
|
| Amazon has lost that, with their "No, I don't want to buy Prime",
| "No, I _really_ don 't want to buy Prime", and "QUIT TRYING TO
| GET ME TO BUY YOUR PRIME SERVICE" check out system.
| nborwankar wrote:
| Slightly unconnected but I've found a rather disturbing "dark
| pattern" in Amazon sales of food items in CA.
|
| Background: CA requires a warning on food that has some threshold
| level of carcinogenic or harmful substance - esp lead and
| arsenic. It's called CA 65 Warning or a Proposition 65 warning.
|
| I make sure to look for these on the images of labels and
| ingredients when I buy food especially ground spices off Amazon.
|
| The dark pattern: Label images show no CA 65 warning but when the
| food turns up it has such a warning! I bought bulk powdered
| cinnamon with this issue.
|
| Recently I noticed that while Amazon does not show the warning on
| the label it has an innocuous small print link in your shopping
| cart that leads to the full text of the warning _should you
| notice it and click on it_
|
| This is now in the vicinity of actually increasing the
| probability of physical harm. Because of not having the warning
| in the label AND having an almost ignorable warning at checkout
| when you are more focused on getting things done and move on to
| the next thing, as opposed to when you are in a more deliberative
| state while browsing.
|
| Just want to put that out for folks in CA who might care about
| such things. I'm sure they wouldn't try shtuff like this in EU.
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