Important Facts For Prelims
CCPA Issues Guidelines Safeguarding Against Dark Patterns
- 06 Dec 2023
- 4 min read
Why in News?
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), India's top consumer watchdog, has recently notified guidelines for prevention and regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023.
- These guidelines, issued under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, are designed to protect consumers from deceptive practices employed by online platforms.
What are Dark Patterns?
- Dark patterns, also known as deceptive patterns, refer to strategies employed by websites and apps to make users perform actions they did not intend to or discourage behaviors that are not advantageous for the companies.
- These patterns often exploit cognitive biases and employ tactics such as false urgency, forced actions, hidden costs etc.
What are the Key Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns?
- The guidelines prohibit the use of dark patterns to mislead or coerce users.
- The guidelines also urge entities to retain users and drive sales using ethical and consumer-centric approaches.
- These guidelines regarding the dark patterns extend their applicability to all platforms offering goods and services in India, encompassing advertisers and sellers.
- E-commerce players, websites, and apps are subject to the regulatory framework established by these guidelines.
- The CCPA has outlined 13 types of dark patterns in its notification. They are:
- False Urgency: Creating a false sense of urgency or scarcity to induce immediate purchases.
- Basket Sneaking: Inclusion of additional items at checkout without user consent, resulting in higher payments.
- Confirm Shaming: Using fear or shame to nudge users into specific actions for commercial gains.
- Forced Action: Compelling users to take actions requiring additional purchases or sharing personal information.
- Subscription Trap: Making cancellation complex, hiding options, or forcing payment details for free subscriptions.
- Interface Interference: Manipulating the user interface to misdirect users from intended actions.
- Bait and Switch: Deceptively serving an alternate outcome than advertised based on user actions.
- Drip Pricing: Concealing prices upfront, revealing them post-confirmation, or preventing service use unless additional items are purchased.
- Disguised Advertisement: Posing advertisements as other content to trick users into clicking.
- Nagging: Persistent interactions disrupting and annoying users for commercial gains.
- Trick Question: Deliberate use of confusing language to misguide users.
- Saas Billing: Generating recurring payments in a software as a service (SaaS) model.
- Rogue Malwares: Using ransomware or scareware to mislead users into paying for fake malware removal tools.
What is the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)?
- CCPA established under the Consumer Protection Act of 2019, safeguards and defends consumers' rights, issuing guidelines for effective enforcement and enhancement of consumer rights.
- The objective of the CCPA is to promote, protect and enforce the rights of consumers as a class.
- It will be empowered to conduct investigations into violation of consumer rights and institute complaints / prosecution, order recall of unsafe goods and services, order discontinuation of unfair trade practices and misleading advertisements, impose penalties on manufacturers/endorsers/publishers of misleading advertisements.
