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Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

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Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#171

Post by ZoFreX »

spindritf wrote: post #46
sentenza wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I, as a consumer from continental Europe, can't be subject to what is essentially a rippoff by UK online shops any more, then it is a win. It even makes it easier for UK online shops to be compliant with consumer protection laws within the rest of Europe. I fail to see the downside.

Downsides are the same as always. The higher the regulation burden, the fewer new companies and products we will see. This is how we ended up relying on Americans for almost every service online, computers, phones... Even with all the upside, I don't that's the right trade-off. But once you start piling up exemptions, and industry-specific rules, you forgo most of the benefit you could have achieved with uniform regu…

If a company that formerly would have existed will now not spring into existence because it breaks these new regulations, then I say good riddance. One less scam merchant looking to make a fast buck by ripping off their customers. That's an area we really don't need any more innovation in.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#172

Post by lotharbot »

Someone1234 wrote: post #105
pdpi wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that it's increasingly the case that "Europe" gets used in place of EU in much the same way as people will say "America" when they mean the USA.

Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. There are too many countries within Europe but not in the EU to use the terms synonymously. For example: Albania, Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vatican City I think…

> "people are using the down arrow as a "I disagree" button.."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 "I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness." - pg, 2382 days ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=392347 "Downvoting has always been used to express disagreement." - pg, 2085 days ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658691 "IIRC we first had this conversation about a month after launch. Downvotes have always been used to express disagreement. Or more precisely, a negative score has: users seem not to downvote something they disagree with if it already has a sufficiently negative score." - pg, 1898 days ago

(If you were not aware: pg is Paul Graham, the founder of YCombinator and Hacker News.)

FWIW I did not downvote you in this thread (I actually upvoted you.) I'm just informing you of the principle -- downvote for disagreement is totally cool on HN.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#173

Post by mikeash »

protonfish wrote: post #63
poof131 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, a good piece of regulation, but who believes in no regulation? To me, no regulation means no law, which means anarchy. And the only people who want anarchy are the same types of people who would be dead the first day it broke out. But much of the regulation in the US is regulatory capture. We need regulation for the people, not for the companies. Moving in the right direction is a challenge and we need to break…

So I commented on your first paragraph just to make a joke, then I read your second. There is no reason to believe that cross-party unity would solve anything, and plenty to make us think it would make things way worse. Two parties that are friendly and cozy with each other are equivalent to a single party. That will leave US voters with no real choice at the ballot box, and remove the only real repercussion to a pol…

Where does he advocate cross-party unity? He criticizes blind partisanship, and there are plenty of better alternatives to that besides just melding the two major parties into one.

Paradoxically, the current situation of extreme partisanship is close to a single unified party. The parties choose small wedge issues to fight over, and the rest is generally untouched. I won't go so far as to say "both parties are the same", but the differences aren't huge. Health care reform is a big wedge issue right now, and the two sides basically boil down to tweaking the dial on just how much private sector involvement there should be. Foreign policy is portrayed as a big divide, but the two parties seem to just switch sides on that depending on which one has the Presidency. There's no place in a major party for someone who wants to vote on the basis of getting out of the Global War on Terror, or for drug legalization, or single-payer health care, or many other such things.

Right now, the parties don't have to actually compete very much. Most people have chosen a side and stick with it no matter what. If we can get away from the idea that the other side is evil, that would increase the competition between them, not decrease it.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#174

Post by mahouse »

agos wrote: post #73
mahouse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can print your passes between 15 days and around 2 hours before the flight. I don't get your point. I've flown with Ryanair plenty of times and, if you are able to ignore the constant bugging with booze/parfums/car rentals onboard and can stand the small seats, they are the probably the best thing that there is.

it's 7 days, not 15. the point is that if you're on a trip longer than 7 days you have to print them while on your trip, which might not be easy.

For the life of me, I'm sure it is (or at least it was) 15 days. And yes, printing it while on your trip can be a major nuisance (happened to me once; it was not a nuisance for me on that trip, but depending on where you are, yes it can be).

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#175

Post by mikeash »

baddox wrote: post #145
kzrdude wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anarchy doesn't really exist. It's just that people want to go back to a state before the current contracts and laws were passed. What would happen? The same kinds of associations, rules, and laws would form again.

All self-proclaimed anarchists I am aware of oppose the state, but do not oppose associations, rules, or laws.

The point is that "the state" will just come back. You can't get rid of it permanently.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#176

Post by thedufer »

twistedpair wrote: post #139
yardie wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cleaning fees and service fees, to me, are like delivery fees. Everyone assumes they are paying for them in the rental. And almost everyone I know uses AirBnB because it is cheaper than a hotel. But once you start adding on fees that value diminishes. The last place I rented wasn't exactly located downtown and, after all the fees, only $15/night cheaper than a hotel. Our final 2 nights we stayed at a hotel and had a…

Funny, last time I staid in a hotel, they didn't charge me a cleaning fee... and they cleaned the room every day!

That's actually the reason there's no cleaning fee; its more or less the same amount of work per day, regardless of turnover. If it only gets cleaned once at the end of each stay (typical of AirBnB), then it costs more per day for a 1-night guest than a 7-night guest. Adding fixed fees in additional to the daily rate allows the price to match the cost better.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#177

Post by orblivion »

idlewords wrote: post #8

A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. (Another good example is the Internet itself, but it's best to start small)

Actually as one of the people I think you're talking about (though as someone else noted I don't know if your description of radical free-market types is perfectly accurate, it's really about net benefit) this concerns me. In principle it seems to be banning fraud, and if that's all it does then I can't really complain. But to say "you can't structure your site in such a way" I think it's rather heavy handed. I guess it comes down to how it's enforced. Given the way governments generally are, there's going to be some sort of government agency with an official review process for websites, it's going to bog everything down, things will get developed much more slowly. This is a hidden cost. The web is a very agile industry, so this would be particularly painful. So until you can quantify this cost, you can't argue that this is unquestionably a beneficial regulation.

I think a better way (though maybe with lesser hidden costs) to deal with it would be to declare that such dark patterns constitute fraud. That way, a customer is free to sue a company for committing it. Then the incentives are placed on the company not to set up these patterns. If there's a grey area, it's not the job of a bureaucrat to prescribe, it's the job of a consumer to decide if they've been defrauded, then judge to agree or not, and also the company to make a risk trade off, and so forth. Much less rigid that way.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#178

Post by blibble »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #165

I am not sure this attempt at legislating good behavior will have much effect. Too often these things are easier for the bad guy to ignore than for the individual to prosecute. I've wondered for a while if there was a way of creating some sort of "Small Claims Court as a service" system that would not overly benefit cranks. Something where you could mail in a complain with attached details and have the prosecution en…

government's done "small claims process as a service" already: https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/

fill in website, the letters go out automatically.

if the person you're suing admits fault (or doesn't respond): the cheque normally turns up in a few weeks.

otherwise will give you a court date.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#179

Post by orblivion »

danielweber wrote: post #130
idlewords wrote: post #8

A good example of beneficial government regulation, for people who refuse to believe such a thing exists. (Another good example is the Internet itself, but it's best to start small)

If you had stopped at the first comma, this would have been a fine comment. But by taking a swipe at people[1], you start a political discussion. [1] even if they are people that you Know For Sure and can Absolutely Prove are in the Wrong

Unfortunately, what may seem to be obvious and apolitical to you inevitably steps on the toes of other techies on this forum who sees things otherwise. I don't see a way for this story not to be political. (Though that's no excuse for any of to be impolite, if that's what you're getting at. [Which is not to say that the swipe you mentioned was impolite.])

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#180

Post by fr11 »

reitanqild wrote: post #52
rmc wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of extras are sold on the plane or at checkin (like 60EUR for a boarding pass) That's not an extra, that a "you should have printed the PDF at home" charge.

> "you should have printed the PDF at home" Just remember that with Ryanair, simple is not an option unless you pay and pay and pay and pay. Example: Printing boarding passes a few days ahead: not possible. Oh, unless you pay for reserved seats. Otherwise feel free to wait until a few days ahead of departure, remember to check in, or you'll be hit with another charge at checkin. Source: Traveled w/Ryanair this summer…

Is there a Dealing-With-Ryanair-As-A-Service company out there? It would be hilarious for someone to figure out all the tricks of Ryanair and then offer, for €5 or something, that they will make the plane reservation and text you the moment you need to do the things you need to do, and otherwise clarify the process.
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