Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK • Hacker News Board

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#181

Post by V-2 » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:41 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #117

Someone1234 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. Well, it's exactly the same as with America (the continent) and United States (a country). You can either argue that both calling EU Europe and USA America is wrong and we should stop, or accept that in both cases, people can figure things out from the context.

Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion.

If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you?

Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely.

People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales) and while it's probably fine as a mental shortcut, it can make you misunderstood or get on somebody's nerves once in a while. And that's a fact of life, too.

Disclaimer: I'm European / EU citizen / Polish.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#182

Post by mrweasel » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:43 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #64

dzhiurgis wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't: * Can't get shipping charges before the last step (after selecting the credit card which implies I am about to pay) * Sneaking in Prime * Fucked up search

Nobody can give you shipping charges without knowing your address. The credit card step exists because most of the time the billing address and shipping address are the same.

It depends really. Amazon.com, no of cause not, the US is huge for small countries, you do know the shipping cost.

I work for a company that has seven webshops, in six countries. We work out how much it will be to ship an item, on average and just include it in the price of the product. If the customer orders multiple item, we save a bit of money on shipping for that order. So in our case, because one webshop only shipping within one country, we always have a shipping cost of zero (it no zero of cause, it's factored into the product price, but it easier to figure out the actual cost of a purchase ).

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#183

Post by mseebach » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:44 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #3

Sounds like an excellent law to stop the horrid practices in so many online shops. Let's hope a form of this law spreads throughout Europe and the U.S. This caught my eye, however: "A failure to comply cancels the transaction. You can get your money back and keep the goods. If the sale was for a service or a digital download, the contract is cancelled and no further payments are due." Wow. Seems like it would make a…

> You can get your money back and keep the goods

My guess is that's a journalistic misinterpretation of what canceling a transaction means. It's very common in the law that when a transaction is cancelled, not only do you have to return the product, if you've used it, the seller can make a reasonable deduction in your refund.

If the consequence indeed is as stated, it's not like customers would benefit much in the long term, as the newly introduced risk would render most online shopping totally uneconomical: what if someone successfully sues you for utilizing a "dark pattern", now all your customers can demand a refund "for free" -- without having to return the product? Lose all your past revenue AND your product stock overnight? That's unheard of as punishment in commercial law.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#184

Post by wnoise » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:46 PM UTC

V-2 wrote: post #181

TeMPOraL wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. Well, it's exactly the same as with America (the continent) and United States (a country). You can either argue that both calling EU Europe and USA America is wrong and we should stop, or accept that in both cases, people can figure things out from the context.

Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion. If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you? Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely. People are also o…

In "Let's hope marijuana legalization spreads throughout America", I would indeed assume they meant the U.S.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#185

Post by mrweasel » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:52 PM UTC

spindritf wrote: post #12

Financial services are exempt under the Directive Great. Let's take all the downside of heavy regulation but give up most of the upside.

Makes you wonder why financial services are exempt. Do they simply have better lawyers and lobbyist or is there an actual good reason.

Yes, ordering from Ryanair is pretty complicated if you don't want to end up paying all sorts of fees, but financial services can be even harder to understand and have more long lasting consequences. If anything financial services should be the first to be targeted.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#186

Post by twic » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 7:56 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #183

epaga wrote: post #3

Sounds like an excellent law to stop the horrid practices in so many online shops. Let's hope a form of this law spreads throughout Europe and the U.S. This caught my eye, however: "A failure to comply cancels the transaction. You can get your money back and keep the goods. If the sale was for a service or a digital download, the contract is cancelled and no further payments are due." Wow. Seems like it would make a…

> You can get your money back and keep the goods My guess is that's a journalistic misinterpretation of what canceling a transaction means. It's very common in the law that when a transaction is cancelled, not only do you have to return the product, if you've used it, the seller can make a reasonable deduction in your refund. If the consequence indeed is as stated, it's not like customers would benefit much in the lo…

On the contrary, this appears to be exactly what Ms Burns suggests:

In my book I talked about “trading trolls” – people who would surf the web specifically looking for noncompliant sites so that they can place an order, get the stuff, report the site for noncompliance, get their money back, and keep the stuff. After all, if the site is breaking the law, they have no recourse there.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#187

Post by Perseids » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 8:12 PM UTC

V-2 wrote: post #181

TeMPOraL wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then people are "increasingly" using it incorrectly. Europe is a continent, the EU is a political alliance. Well, it's exactly the same as with America (the continent) and United States (a country). You can either argue that both calling EU Europe and USA America is wrong and we should stop, or accept that in both cases, people can figure things out from the context.

Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion. If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you? Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely. People are also o…

> People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales)

More to the point, when I use "England" instead of "United Kingdom" I disregard the separation and jurisdictional peculiarities of Scotland, Wales and England and refer to the whole as "England". As neither I nor the great majority of people in my social circles know how their government works precisely and what their national identity multitude is about, the linguistic separation seems mood anyway. That's not to say that it is actually unimportant, though.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#188

Post by mseebach » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 8:25 PM UTC

twic wrote: post #186

mseebach wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can get your money back and keep the goods My guess is that's a journalistic misinterpretation of what canceling a transaction means. It's very common in the law that when a transaction is cancelled, not only do you have to return the product, if you've used it, the seller can make a reasonable deduction in your refund. If the consequence indeed is as stated, it's not like customers would benefit much in the lo…

On the contrary, this appears to be exactly what Ms Burns suggests: In my book I talked about “trading trolls” – people who would surf the web specifically looking for noncompliant sites so that they can place an order, get the stuff, report the site for noncompliance, get their money back, and keep the stuff. After all, if the site is breaking the law, they have no recourse there.

I think I know what is meant now.

The directive (http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/rights-contra...):

(60) Since inertia selling, which consists of unsolicited supply of goods or provision of services to consumers, is prohibited by Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) (2) but no contractual remedy is provided therein, it is necessary to introduce in this Directive the contractual remedy of exempting the consumer from the obligation to provide any consideration for such unsolicited supply or provision.

The way I read that is if you add an item to the customers cart automatically, then you have no legal claim to get paid for that item. The sale of the stuff you actually wanted is still valid.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#189

Post by spindritf » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

ZoFreX wrote: post #171

spindritf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about breaking this or that particular regulation. It's the sheer number you have to comply with. Even if every single regulation was positive on its own, in aggregate they could still stifle economic development and lead to perverse results.

Take web for example. Of course it would be better if every website followed standards, was available to impaired users, and over ssl. But if you started fining people who fail to live up, you would make it prohibitively expensive to run a private site outside of a handful of massive platforms established by large corporations who can afford developers and usability testing.

We understand that in this context. The advice to start with whatever works and iterate from there is common.

It's the same with running a company. The more requirements there are, even if each one is perfectly reasonable, the fewer people will be able to afford to start them, the less innovation we will see, the more we will rely on foreign products from countries with lesser regulation burden.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#190

Post by V-2 » Tue, Aug 26, 2014, 8:36 PM UTC

Perseids wrote: post #187

V-2 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a common metonymy, but whether its use is valid or misleading for no good reason depends on the context in my opinion. If somebody said "let's hope this law spreads throughout America", you wouldn't assume they meant just the US, would you? Calling the United States "America" is often handy, but it's sort of a sloppy language all in all. Personally I rather avoid it if ambiguity is likely. People are also o…

> People are also often referring to the United Kingdom as "England" (disregarding the existence of Scotland and Wales) More to the point, when I use "England" instead of "United Kingdom" I disregard the separation and jurisdictional peculiarities of Scotland, Wales and England and refer to the whole as "England". As neither I nor the great majority of people in my social circles know how their government works preci…

That's what it's like from your point of view, sure, but I'm kind of taking the point of view of someone who values Scottish (or Welsh) national identity and for them being labeled as "England" even for the sake of convenience could be a bit of a slap (and again, not that it's your intention, obviously).

For what it's worth: roughly 10 years ago, when Poland was about to join the EU, Yes supporters used a slogan "Yes, I'm an European" [and thus I vote for entering the EU] in the pre-referendum campaign.

I would see this slogan (consciously playing on the Eastern complex, to be sure) as somewhat offensive in its coarseness. What was it really saying? 1000 years of European history and heritage doesn't matter and you are disqualified from being an European if you don't support joining the EU? :)