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Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

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Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#11

Post by danShumway »

MereInterest wrote: post #2

Interesting that this site itself may use one of the described dark patterns. The banner on the main page has options "Got it" and "Learn more". There is no indication as to whether the "Got it" button is taken as consent for tracking, nor is there a "Reject all non-essential tracking" option on the main banner. Whether or not this site is compliant depends on whether the "Got it" button is taken as affirmative conse…

The site itself completely stops working if cookies are disabled, it just forwards me to a "cookie absent" error page.

Their privacy policy says:

> Other than in the restricted-access portions of the Web Site that require an ACM Web Account, ACM does not log the identity of visitors. However, we may keep access logs, for example containing a visitor's IP address and search queries. We may analyze log files periodically to help maintain and improve our Web Site and enforce our online service polices. ACM only uses analytical cookies and does not use any user-specific targeting cookies.

> A cookie is a small file of letter and numbers that is placed on your device. Cookies are only set by ACM when you visit restricted portions of our Web Site and help us to provide you with an enhanced user experience. Raw log files are treated as confidential.

So... not sure why a public portion of their website straight-up won't load without them. They're clearly not only checking/setting cookies on certain pages, otherwise they wouldn't know that my cookies were disabled.

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#13

Post by s_dev »

Bakary wrote: post #4

Who came up with the term dark patterns? It's psychological manipulation and fraud, pure and simple

Would you consider the fact that bread and fruit and veg are always at the start of a supermarket journey a dark pattern?

Supermarkets have gotten customers to spend more than they intended with all their patterns as well -- just like social media sites get customers to spend more time online. It's just what they optimise for. The concept is much older than the coined word.

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#14

Post by sefrost »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #7

For me personally - all these popup banners and modal walls for websites about cookies and stuff just really make the internet a worse place. I suspect that empirically, they don't accomplish what the GDPR intended to - and they make the internet less enjoyable. Thanks GDPR.

Same here. I would be interested to know from people outside the GDPR area - do you ever see cookie banners? Do you know what they are?

Sometimes I hit a USA based news website which simply denies access, because I'm in the UK, on GDPR grounds. Which seems an overreaction.

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#15

Post by wuliwong »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #7

For me personally - all these popup banners and modal walls for websites about cookies and stuff just really make the internet a worse place. I suspect that empirically, they don't accomplish what the GDPR intended to - and they make the internet less enjoyable. Thanks GDPR.

I was just thinking about that the other day. The billions of extra clicks and taps and wasted seconds. And for what gain? I think that this can be discussed outside of the basic "should we regulate" or not. Specifically looking at these modals that have spread all over, what actual protection does the average user get from this modal?

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#18

Post by bombcar »

sefrost wrote: post #14
rwcarlsen wrote: post #7

For me personally - all these popup banners and modal walls for websites about cookies and stuff just really make the internet a worse place. I suspect that empirically, they don't accomplish what the GDPR intended to - and they make the internet less enjoyable. Thanks GDPR.

Same here. I would be interested to know from people outside the GDPR area - do you ever see cookie banners? Do you know what they are? Sometimes I hit a USA based news website which simply denies access, because I'm in the UK, on GDPR grounds. Which seems an overreaction.

EVERY WEBSITE I visit from my location in the USA seems to have these stupid cookie popups. We added one to OUR WEBSITE even though nothing is hosted in the EU - simple cargo-culting "everyone is doing it so we must do it also".

I doubt it actually does a @#$@$ darn thing.

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#19

Post by justkez »

I recently purchased something from the official UK Nintendo Store [1]. I did not opt-in, and was not asked to opt-in, to marketing emails.

Several days after purchase I received a marketing email with an Unsubscribe link.

I submitted a GDPR enquiry and after a few weeks I get:

  Having investigated this matter fully, we can see that you were opted in as a result of a small technical difficulty which we are now fixing. We have taken action to set your marketing permissions to "no" as requested.
I think we're so far past the GDPR "start date" that there's an apathy to it from companies and they're pushing the limits again. How Nintendo can have such a formalised GDPR enquiry process but such sloppy controls is beyond me. I will formally complain to ICO (UK data regulator) but I doubt it'll effect much.

[1]: https://store.nintendo.co.uk/

Re: Dark patterns after the GDPR: consent pop-ups and their influence

#20

Post by yohannparis »

rwcarlsen wrote: post #7

For me personally - all these popup banners and modal walls for websites about cookies and stuff just really make the internet a worse place. I suspect that empirically, they don't accomplish what the GDPR intended to - and they make the internet less enjoyable. Thanks GDPR.

You mean developer or website manager who do not apply the law properly. All those deceptive patterns are not part of the GDPR, they should clearly label accept and refuse. I think it will take time for people to stop gathering so much information from users. Once a competitors start to figure it out, users might start using them (i.e. New York Times & GitHub.)
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