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Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

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Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#211

Post by austincheney »

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.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#212

Post by elliekelly »

plorg wrote: post #100
fpig wrote: post #17

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.

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.

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.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#213

Post by kayodelycaon »

snegu wrote: post #171
shiftpgdn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's interesting! I recently cancelled my NYT subscription using their live chat with no trouble at all.

Same here. No problems at all. (I’m in Ohio.)

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#214

Post by lucb1e »

tobiasSoftware wrote: post #64

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…

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!

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#215

Post by lima »

wolpoli wrote: post #196
chestervonwinch wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain why this is a dark pattern? How does slack benefit from you using the native app vs. the web app?

One major benefit of native app over web app is their ability to send notifications to get the user's attention.

Web apps can send notifications just fine, even in the background.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#216

Post by jfk13 »

zkid18 wrote: post #187

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,…

> 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.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#217

Post by rovr138 »

rawtxapp wrote: post #85
fpig wrote: post #17

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.

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…

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.

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#219

Post by kart23 »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #44
dmix wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

And they recently ran an opinion piece calling attention to dark patterns.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opinion/dark-pattern-inte...

Re: Request for comments regarding topics to be discussed at Dark Patterns workshop

#220

Post by smichel17 »

nitrogen wrote: post #70
thow-01187 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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