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Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

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Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#61

Post by kzrdude »

poof131 wrote: post #39
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)

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…

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.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#62

Post by Someone1234 »

thomasahle wrote: post #50

Sorry, but this seems like a stupid law. Clearly fraud was already illegal, all that was needed were court cases clearly demonstrating these patterns. A law like this just encourages people to tweak their practices slightly and continue as before.

Your argument falls flat simply because the reality on the ground was that existing laws and enforcement wasn't taking care of the problem. These new laws give more powers to consumers to effectively take the law into their own hands.

Additionally fraud (at least in the UK) doesn't impact several of the practices as they weren't misleading, just obnoxious (like adding things to your cart, or fees not on the advert but on the final checkout page).

> A law like this just encourages people to tweak their practices slightly and continue as before.

By that logic why try and do anything at all ever? It is a very defeatist attitude that results in inaction.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#63

Post by protonfish »

poof131 wrote: post #39
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)

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 politician - the fear that their opponent will take them to task during the next election.

Partisan politics is the most powerful tool we have to preventing politicians from running rampant with power. Heaven help us if they ever unite against their common enemy - the people.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#64

Post by saosebastiao »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #53
Padding wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this basically what Amazon does? I've always felt very comfortable and safe when pushing the buy button on their site.

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.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#65

Post by maccard »

rtb wrote: post #14
TeMPOraL wrote: post #9

I wonder why there seem to be no companies that use "not being cheating bastards" as a marketing advantage. I'd gladly pay more to buy from a shop that emphasizes transparency and fairness.

Huh? There are loads. I can think of several companies that I buy things from because I know I won't get messed with even if the headline price might appear a little higher than their competitors (think EasyJet v.s. RyanAir).

Ryanair don't do that. The price they advertise at the flight choice time is the price you pay. THey then try shove extras down your throat, but you're not obligated to buy travel insurance, rent a car, use their jet ski etc .

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#67

Post by mahouse »

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…

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.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#68

Post by icebraining »

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)

I disagree. This shouldn't need specific regulations, they should be treated as plain fraud by small claim courts.

This just underlines the brokenness of the system.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#69

Post by Silhouette »

tehwebguy wrote: post #45
Pxtl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps including the credit cart "dispute charges" process into this discussion would help?

That was my guess as to where enforcement takes place. But this is already a great way to "reeducate" terrible retailers since there are often expensive chargeback fees even if the vendor wins the dispute ($15-25 in the US)

Chargebacks are a significant risk as merchants, because if you start to rack up too many of them then it won't just be the individual chargeback fees for each of those transactions that you have to worry about. As I understand it, you can also wind up paying higher processing costs generally, or even being kicked by your payment services and/or not accepted by other services in the future if your track record gets bad enough.

Then again, even my tiny little start-up manages to advertise an honest recurring subscription fee, tax-inclusive, with no other charges added on top later. In our entire time trading, I think we've had exactly one person complain that they didn't realise it was a monthly fee when they signed up. I'm not sure how they managed to miss it -- we tell them right next to the price, in full size text, throughout the sign-up process. But even so, we just refunded their second payment and cancelled their ongoing subscription to avoid the argument, and that was the end of the matter. We never got as far as any sort of formal dispute/chargeback process via the customer's card company.

So I guess I don't have much sympathy if the kinds of big businesses mentioned in this article can't figure it out and wind up suffering for it under these new laws. These "dark patterns" are obviously deceptive and obviously unfair to consumers, and I'm glad the big businesses are going to have to play by the same rules as the rest of us in the future.

Re: Some Dark Patterns Now Illegal in UK

#70

Post by untog »

rmc wrote: post #44
raverbashing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of extras are sold on the plane or at checkin (like 60EUR for a boarding pass) That's why I never fly with them. Too much BS to waddle through.

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.

I suspect I am not alone in not having a printer at home. The sooner they do e-tickets the better, but they have little interest in doing so.

In any case, I take Aer Lingus for flights between London and Dublin now. They're not considerably more expensive, but they are 100x better, and I don't feel like I'm giving money to a shower of utter bastards.

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