Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

regulations.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 542 posts

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

#521

Post by shkkmo »

anoncake wrote: post #493
shkkmo wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if it mimics the browser. If you are trying to stop the browser from protecting the user as intended, it is a dark pattern, regardless of how well you camoflage the attempt.

In principle yes. But why would you imitate the browser if not to mislead the user? And who wants to mislead the user but has qualms imitating the browser?

People do all kinds of mental gymnastics to justify doing stuff they know is wrong. I would be unsuprised that people use the lack of camoflage as an excuse to justify using a dark pattern.

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

#522

Post by novaleaf »

Here is my "feedback" I just posted.....

Circumventing Legal Regulation by proxy: It is now illegal for an ISP to charge a modem rental fee if you are not using their modem. My Internet provider (Comcast) circumvents this by tying a bundled subscription (security monitoring) to the rented modem. If I use their rented modem I get the "Internet+security monitoring" bundled plan at a "discount rate" of aprox $80/mth (plus $15/mth for modem rental). If I do not use their rented modem, I do not qualify for the discounted bundled plan. A plain "Internet only" plan is $180/mth.

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

#523

Post by duckfang »

walrus01 wrote: post #318
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.

> That shit should be punishable by literal prison time. Forcible corporate dissolution, chapter 7 style.

I'd also play around with throwing C levels in jail for a week.

Once its real skin in the game, I'd imagine they would have a real good look at their company-level actions.

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

#524

Post by anotha1 »

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.

This is why I love privacy.com

If it takes more than a couple of clicks from the accounts section, or so ambiguously states the cancellation process that it suddenly seems hazardous, then I just cancel the temporary privacy.com card.

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

#526

Post by zepto »

ryandrake wrote: post #319
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If they really don’t want people to use it on the web they should simply turn down the web site and tell people to use the app or GTFO. Instead they keep it up but cripple it and then repeatedly beg the user to something they clearly don’t want to do.

Companies discontinue or reduce support for products they don’t want to continue investing in all the time.

Some users are obviously going to be unhappy about this.

It’s not a dark pattern.

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

#527

Post by dec0dedab0de »

zepto wrote: post #519
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the "app" in question is essentially a less accessible web page, then I think it's safe to assume something shady is going on. To be clear, I'm mostly talking about apps that are just a collection of views for a remote API. The only valid reason I can think of for these kinds of apps is because you're an ios/android developer and you're not good at making webpages. In that case, the best tool is the one you know…

This logic doesn’t follow. iOS apps that use system controls generally have far better accessibility than web pages do, indeed accessibility is a primary reason for creating a native app.

I only have some anecdotal data on this one, and maybe I'm comparing to apps that are not using system controls.

My mother struggles with any ios App because of how the zoom is implemented in the different apps. She can get by with the built in magnifier tool, but only when she already knows the app well.

Personally, I recently had nerve damage in my hands, and it was very difficult for me to enter text. There were many times in native apps where it would have been much better for me to copy/paste random text on the screen, but I was not able to. I know that some web developers like to try to block that too, but I would also consider that a dark pattern.

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

#528

Post by tmpz22 »

bmuon wrote: post #285
tmpz22 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - they're circumventing the intent of the permissions restrictions implementation to the clear detriment of the user.

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 los…

While we disagree I up-voted your comment because as you say, many aspects of this discussion are debatable.

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

#529

Post by cuddlybacon »

thow-01187 wrote: post #48
chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #8

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?

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.

On iOS if you click a link in a Google app it will ask you if you want to install Chrome or continue with Safari.

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

#530

Post by thraway123412 »

brigandish wrote: post #352
thraway123412 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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. Among people who can’t make their point with an accurate representation of someone else’s words. All the descriptive words for this behaviour are negative, for…

Yeah whatever, go fuck yourself.
Post reply on HN