[HN Gopher] Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K...
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Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping
Websites (2019)
Author : pseudolus
Score : 264 points
Date : 2021-01-30 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu)
| aww_dang wrote:
| Some of the things listed are sales techniques I expect from a
| business. If businesses want to set themselves apart by being
| more straightforward, that's another way to sell.
|
| I'm left wondering if the authors take advertisements at face
| value as well?
|
| "After extensive research, we found that the stain could be
| removed, but not as easily as shown in the TV advert. As
| academics, we conclude that this is dark and deceptive."
| 6chars wrote:
| I believe this kind of thing is a big contributor to Amazon's
| hegemony in online shopping. I'm reluctant to order from other
| sites because there's a whole new set of dark patterns I may fall
| victim to. At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm
| not getting charged for things I didn't intend to order, the low
| stock warnings are somewhat legitimate, etc. I'm not saying
| Amazon doesn't have its own issues, but at least it's a known
| quantity.
|
| If it weren't for Amazon's dominance, other sites would be able
| to compete without resorting to these dark patterns, so this is a
| self-perpetuating cycle: people only shop on Amazon -> the only
| other sites that can survive are the ones that engage in
| deception -> trust in non-Amazon shopping sites decreases ->
| people only shop on Amazon -> ...
|
| I don't mean to cast these scammy shopping websites as victims.
| My concern is more about how the legitimate sites that could
| exist don't because they're crowded out by Amazon (and other big
| players like Walmart) and the scammy shopping sites this article
| discusses.
| ieeamo wrote:
| Amazon _is_ one of the scammy shopping sites this articles
| discusses - it's listed in the dataset.
|
| I'd wager that many of the dark patterns persist because Amazon
| use them, making their justification inside smaller companies
| easier.
| tyingq wrote:
| One example is their "subscriptions" to products. It's very
| easy to accidentally order a recurring subscription to a
| shipped physical product, rather than just a one-time
| purchase.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I just looked and subscriptions are very clearly labeled
| every step of the way, not even an attempt to be tricky
| that I can see.
| tyingq wrote:
| It's possible they've changed it since I last
| accidentally did that, or perhaps I'm just dense :)
| notdang wrote:
| I usually take advantage of this to lower the price by 10%
| and then cancel the subscription.
| 6chars wrote:
| I'm not saying they aren't. What I'm trying to get across is
| that people are more used to and, therefore, inured to their
| dark patterns. There's a learning curve for navigating any
| website's dark patterns, so I'm more comfortable using a site
| whose dark patterns I believe I can recognize and avoid than
| one I haven't used before and am consequently more likely to
| be victimized by.
|
| I'm definitely overestimating my own ability to avoid
| Amazon's scammy tactics. I, like most people, am reluctant to
| admit that I'm vulnerable to manipulation by things like
| these dark patterns (and ads, PR, etc.). But since I'm
| talking about my subjective feelings towards the websites, I
| think how good I _feel_ I am is relevant.
|
| I totally agree with everything you've said, but just want to
| clarify my initial comment. I'm not trying to let Amazon off
| the hook, though they are less problematic than almost all of
| the other examples in the article.
| marcinzm wrote:
| It's listed ONCE in the dataset due to a product option
| defaulting to the most expensive version. A very minor dark
| pattern I'd argue.
| ieeamo wrote:
| Why the downvote? Amazon has consistently been flagged for
| excessive use of Dark patterns, e.g. [1].
|
| [1] https://www.uxukawards.com/best-dark-ux/
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| (My experience is with amazon.ca) Amazon is filled with the
| kinds of deception that the article discusses.
|
| I dont have prime and the whole UI is set up to trick me into
| getting prime.
|
| I always buy enough to get free shipping (which they show
| with a big banner), but it always defaults to paid shipping,
| that often needs to be removed item by item.
|
| More often than not, books I search for default to kindle,
| and I have actually been tricked into buying a kindle version
| before.
|
| They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as
| much as they can.
|
| I could go on, but the point is I agree with you entirely.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > that often needs to be removed item by item.
|
| In general you just need to change it for each shipment -
| if multiple items are grouped together [because they're all
| at the same warehouse) then changing one shipment will
| change the shipping speed of all items within it. They
| probably should be defaulting to free shipping when it's
| available, though.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They don't always default to the cheapest option. This
| happens more often when they're trying to steer you into
| selecting a Prime subscription.
| morsch wrote:
| _They hide the fact that you are buying from a reseller as
| much as they can._
|
| I mean, it says Sold by X and Fulfilled by Amazon right
| under the add to basket/buy buttons. It's repeated on the
| order summary. I'm aware people keep missing this, but I
| don't really get it.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I'd wager that a lot of people don't know what that
| means, as opposed to:
|
| You are buying this from X. Amazon is only processing the
| payment.
|
| And there's probably a way to word that even more
| clearly...
| marcinzm wrote:
| As of 2012 Amazon sells more Kindle books than physical
| books in the UK. I suspect that hasn't changed since then.
| So I'd argue defaulting to kindle is the right product
| decision as it's the option the majority of users want.
|
| Amazon Prime on the other hand is definitely a dark
| pattern.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| Amazon has 15 years of shopping history from me that
| includes multiple physical books each month and 0 kindle
| purchases. Its possible they don't consider that and
| default to kindle for everyone, but they at least have
| the info to know that kindle versions are not what I'm
| after.
| _jal wrote:
| Exactly so.
|
| Amazon is incredibly good at converting consumer
| surveillance data in to money. They could easily default
| this (and many other things) to sensible per-user values.
| Given their competence and attention to detail, the
| reasonable guess here is that playing dumb on this
| default pays better than doing right by the user.
| devlopr wrote:
| Could Amazon be selling more kindle ebooks because of the
| policy that selects it as a default?
|
| At this point you couldn't switch back.
| yabudemada wrote:
| I think it's the convenience for both buyers and sellers.
| If readers want the book "now" they get the kindle
| version; if they want it later they get the physical
| copy. However, Kindle in general is a dark pattern: it
| forces users to be locked into their product ecosystem.
| [deleted]
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They sell more e-books because the publishing industry
| colluded to jack up the price of paperbacks so that $10
| e-books look like a bargain. I'm not paying $15 for a
| physical book that would have been $5 15 years ago. Their
| production overhead has been dramatically lowered by
| digital distribution and I'm expected to pay _more_?
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > other sites would be able to compete without resorting to
| these dark patterns
|
| Is there any evidence that e-commerce sites were any less
| scummy before Amazon started competing?
| 6chars wrote:
| I don't have any evidence to back this up, but in my
| recollection, that is the case. But it's hard to even compare
| e-commerce now to back before Amazon, when the web was much
| more niche and a lot of dark patterns weren't even
| technically possible yet.
|
| It would be interesting to see where e-commerce would be
| today if a company as dominant as Amazon never came about. My
| hypothesis is that people would have more trust in a random
| shopping site they click on when Googling a product they want
| to buy, but it's impossible to test that.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| > At least I'm familiar enough with Amazon to know I'm not
| getting charged for things I didn't intend to order
|
| Well, unsubscribing Amazon videos is a dark pattern too. Not as
| bad as Adobe, but still.
| hirundo wrote:
| Amazon earned a lot of loyalty from me with a light pattern. An
| Xbox they shipped me was stolen off of my porch and they
| replaced it with no questions. I've purchased other things from
| random outfits, had them charge the card and then just ghost
| me. If I could buy anywhere with the same confidence I have in
| Amazon then Amazon's hold on me would be a lot weaker.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Another leg up with Amazon is their free returns. I purchased
| over $200 worth of product from corsair.com with free
| shipping, but one item was defective (RGB mousepad regularly
| kills my entire USB stack every few hours - it's either
| defective or incompatible with my motherboard) and the cost
| to return it from Georgia -> California via USPS for
| RMA/refund is nearly a third of the item's price since
| Corsair doesn't pay for return shipping.
| m463 wrote:
| On the other hand, aren't they legally obligated to do so?
| jjcon wrote:
| > a light pattern
|
| These terms are getting a bit out of hand XD
| scollet wrote:
| > when developers follow the way of the Jedi
| m463 wrote:
| that is not accurate. Amazon is brimming with dark patterns.
|
| They walk the line between selling to customers and selling
| customers.
|
| Over time, there are more and more "sponsored" results
| occluding and confusing my search results.
|
| There are now warranty upsell screens on just about every
| purchase ("would you like coverage on your $5 part?")
|
| They don't offer you the lowest cost on an item, you really
| have to drill down into all the offers to check.
|
| If you block part of their site, things don't work - but if you
| sign in, all is well.
|
| Can you delete your browsing history? Well, no. You can "hide"
| your browsing history but "removing items from view".
|
| Search results are peppered with nonsensical results - that you
| searched for/bought before. I'm pretty sure this is timed with
| memory decay.
|
| for example if 3 months ago you searched for dishes. Today when
| you search for computer parts, there might be a dish thrown
| into the results.
|
| They talk about "free shipping" everywhere, but even if your
| cart is $500, you are opted-into non-free shipping and must
| manually select free shipping.
|
| They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping
| emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all
| the info conveniently.
| jonplackett wrote:
| > They don't tell you what is being sent in their shipping
| emails. But you can install their browser plugin and get all
| the info conveniently.
|
| I think this was introduced in response to google scraping
| the data from your gmail. But I'll also add to the list of
| darkness:
|
| Different prices on Alexa VS actually checking the site.
|
| On Alexa, massively prioritising their own brands VS others.
| (check out Scott Galloway's tests)
|
| They're also a case study on darkpatterns.org for how
| difficult it is to cancel.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Similar for platforms that let you build ecommerce sites, like
| Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc. They might be cookie cutter and
| usually over-priced for the level of hosting you get and the
| poorness of the wysiwyg site editing experience, but they solve
| a big problem of letting you get up and running with a
| trustworthy site fast.
|
| It's interesting though because there still are plenty of scam
| sites hosted by those platforms, plenty of dark patterns on
| Amazon too.
| yarcob wrote:
| Here in Austria/Germany I see these dark patterns only from
| Amazon. They always try to get you to subscribe to prime, they
| mislead you with delivery times (my girlfriend has Prime and
| the website shows LONGER delivery times for her. Same item,
| browser signed into my account without Prime: shorter delivery
| time)
|
| I want to support the local economy, so unless an item is only
| available on Amazon, I try to avoid buying from them. I've
| ordered from lots of different online stores in the past few
| years, and in my experience these dark patters are pretty rare.
| helmholtz wrote:
| Exactly. For all of that bullshit, plus Bezos' absolutely
| despicable conduct during Covid, I deleted my Amazon account
| and haven't looked back. Music gear? Thomann. Electronics?
| Digitec or Rakuten. And..., er, I'm struggling to think what
| Amazon was good for anyway. But regardless, unknown stuff?
| shopping.google.com
|
| Honestly, of the top-x tech companies, Amazon is probably one
| of the easiest to quit, perhaps after Netflix.
|
| ETA: And oh yeah. Books? Once again, search on
| shopping.google.com and buy from some small vendor.
| julianlam wrote:
| This is the second time I've seen an article rise to the top of
| HN after I've heard it on CBC's Spark.
|
| Interesting...
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| In California, if you sign up for something on-line the law
| requires that you be able to cancel it on-line, too. This has
| been a wonderful development, and now it's easy to cancel things
| like XM subscriptions, etc.
| dd36 wrote:
| Since when? I tried to cancel NYTimes and it was an ordeal.
| TT3351 wrote:
| I had great results switching my payment method to recurring
| via PayPal and then using the PayPal interface to cancel the
| recurring charge, FWIW. Any time a merchant with recurring
| charges lets you use PayPal you can usually cancel the
| subscription in that way.
| anaerobicover wrote:
| I did the same for a magazine that made cancellation all
| but impossible, using a virtual credit card. I switched the
| payment method for the subscription and set the card to
| deny all charges. Then I just had to endure two months of
| "you're losing access to your subscription" spam. :/
| fortran77 wrote:
| Here's some information: https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-
| must-let-customers-cance....
|
| And here's the Bill that became the law:
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm.
| ..
| scarlac wrote:
| Same situation for Denmark and possibly other European
| countries
| is_true wrote:
| I've implented the urgency pattern but it was purely based on
| finances. We needed cash flow to make some payments.
| swiley wrote:
| *manipulation
|
| "Dark patterns" sounds like some cheesy term someone uses when
| they don't want to admit malice.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Wasn't there an article here recently about some site that was
| supposedly telling you how many other people were looking at the
| same item, and a look a the javascript showed that it was
| basically a (small) random number generated on page load?
| tyingq wrote:
| If you've never used it before, try out https://booking.com
|
| They are fairly infamous for fishy looking inventory warnings,
| aggressive push to register/login, cross/up sell, etc.
| danpalmer wrote:
| There's also a secret search term that turns on every single
| live A/B test, making the site essentially unusable. I don't
| know what it is but a Booking.com employee may be willing to
| share if you every catch them after a few drinks.
| omnibrain wrote:
| It's really bad, but it's still my favourite site to book
| hotels. I can filter for all criterias that matter to me and
| have all my bookings in one place. And their hotline worked for
| me when something went wrong.
|
| Luckily my brain can filter most of the dark patterns.
| tyingq wrote:
| Yes, there appears to be good talent there. All the darkish
| patterns also add up to a really high conversion.
|
| Also, Perl is apparently the backend, which gives me a bit of
| nostalgia.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Can confirm.
|
| I've had booking.com tell me "Hurry! There are only _x_ rooms
| left! " when I've been to the property before, and know that
| _x_ is a number larger than the entire number of rooms that
| exist.
| jakevoytko wrote:
| This is interesting - I feel like the site should separate dark
| patterns that add information from ones that lie or obfuscate. In
| my experience, consumers feel differently about these categories.
|
| I've sat in on a few dozen user research sessions for ecommerce.
| This was qualitative research that included their general
| shopping habits, and additionally testing new features. The most
| interesting thing that I learned is that consumers (a) are
| generally pretty aware of when they're being pressured, and (b)
| are fine if it's transparent and accurate.
|
| A classic example of this were low-stock notifications. The
| shoppers were generally okay with being told that something was
| low stock _if that was really true._ Many people could name
| specific items they lost because they were sold out. Some could
| also name instances of when they had bought something "1 item
| remaining" and seen it on sale the next day. They preferred
| having the information because it helped them make an informed
| decision. It turns out that lots of people browse the same items
| for a while, and use sales or almost-out-of-stock as a "now or
| never" moment.
|
| The most interesting user session I ever sat in on was for a
| countdown timer for a sale ending. The designer refused to design
| it at first, and then was like, "fine, I'm going to design the
| hell out of this and then show you in user research that nobody
| wants this." And then she showed it to 5 people in user research,
| who were generally okay with it on the condition that it counted
| down to the actual sale ending. Some said they actually liked
| knowing, because when they're just looking on their phones they
| might not be in a good position to buy it, and want to know how
| much time they have later to get it. They said that they'll often
| refresh the page to see if the timer resets, because if it starts
| ticking from the same time, they feel like the site is just
| scammy and they'll leave.
|
| Anyways, I'm not trying to defend lots of these patterns. Most of
| them are clearly wrong, and the ones that I mentioned above can
| also be used to lie and deceive. But I wouldn't put them all
| together - in my experience, consumers generally want accurate
| information even if they're aware that the company is doing it to
| pressure them.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The example session makes it clearer that they are talking
| about fake social proof and artificial urgency (if the
| promotion ends in 15 minutes, it is a fake one created just
| when you entered the site, real ones last until a round time or
| for days). Unless the examples are misleading, they should just
| name those categories better.
| jakevoytko wrote:
| Totally, I agree that some of their specific examples mention
| this. Reading the whole site, it was not clear to me whether
| they holistically viewed "being honest about these things" as
| inside or outside the scope of their categorization, which
| prompted my comment
| phasetransition wrote:
| Thanks, it was not clear to me how e.g. (genuine) social
| proof is a dark pattern
| LiquidSky wrote:
| >The shoppers were generally okay with being told that
| something was low stock if that was really true.
|
| But isn't that true of pretty much anything? The problem for
| shoppers is that it's almost impossible to know if what you're
| being told is true, and most people have been burned by scummy
| sales practices too much to trust what a site is telling them
| since there's usually no way to verify it. Is the stock really
| low? Is the sale really about to end? How would the shopper
| know whether it is or whether it's a lie to trick them?
| yarcob wrote:
| People aren't stupid. People may fall for these tricks once
| or twice, but then they realize it's a trick, and they go
| shop somewhere else.
|
| The sites that treat their customers like idiots need to
| constantly find new victims.
|
| Sites that treat their customers with respect may not have as
| high conversion rates for new customers, but the existing
| customers will go there again.
| lestertalk wrote:
| The same authors have a followup paper on this very issue:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.04843.pdf
| jakevoytko wrote:
| Thank you for the link - I particularly enjoyed section 4,
| which really helped drive home that they're referring to
| patterns that induce a loss against some ideal: individual
| autonomy, societal welfare, etc. The paper puts much less of
| an emphasis on situations that are transparent to everyone.
| But they still had good examples of obviously harmful
| patterns like forced registration. Anyways, thanks!
| jiofih wrote:
| 99% of these timers are completely bogus - if you open the same
| store on a new private browsing window you'll see the timer
| reset. Or you'll come back the next day and it's expiring in
| <12 hours _again_.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _In my experience, consumers feel differently about these
| categories._
|
| So the ends justify the means if people are okay with it?
| mattcwilson wrote:
| If consumers prefer a pattern, who is harmed by its use?
| vharuck wrote:
| I think it's more the reasons, if they include honest facts,
| partially justify the means. Of course, this could be because
| everyone thinks they're to smart to be influenced. In which
| case, they appreciate the true information but ignore the
| psyops.
| sriku wrote:
| It lists "forced enrollment" as an example of "forced action"
| which is tangential action required tobe completed. For me, a
| recpatcha step asking me to classify traffix lights or cars is
| one as well.
| vz8 wrote:
| As I write this, I am attempting to reduce the number of licenses
| allocated in the Adobe admin portal.
|
| After hunting through the site, it appears easy to add, but
| impossible to remove licenses without going through sales support
| (instant response with a human), who then transfer you to the
| "Cancellation Team" which are remarkably hard to find online and
| have not replied to previous attempts at cancellation.
|
| This is my third try, and the wait has been ridiculous. After
| finally being connected to a member of their cancellation team,
| they are "reviewing my request" and 1-2 minutes (please stand by)
| has turned into 15+
|
| This experience has been so bad (on top of many others), that I'm
| strongly considering moving our entire org to open source tools
| (aside from InDesign for the publications group, which our
| partners require).
| vz8 wrote:
| Following up: 50 minutes in chat and 5 rounds of back and forth
| like a used car dealership before they would agree to cancel.
|
| Adobe: "Have 3 months free!"
|
| Me: "We are no longer using these licenses."
|
| Adobe: "But you are on the hook for a year. We have reset all
| of your licenses to have the same annual renewal date,
| regardless of when you purchased them."
|
| Me: "We are no longer using these licenses. Free months are
| just a tactic in hopes that we miss the cancellation window and
| are forced to pay for another year."
|
| Adobe: "We highly recommend that you accept our generous 3
| months free offer."
|
| Me: "That sounds a little ominous. Please cancel the licenses,
| effective immediately."
|
| This is paraphrased, but follows the essential conversation.
| Adobe, you disappoint me.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Tell them they're engaging in racketeering and you're going
| to file a complaint with your state AG.
| m463 wrote:
| What's worse is the poor employee forced to do this day in
| and day out.
| jonplackett wrote:
| They're getting commission when they succeed.
| game_the0ry wrote:
| Or in the case Wells Fargo, they're threatened with being
| fired if they don't meet sales quotas using unethical and
| illegal means. Then they're fired anyway when they are
| caught.
| p410n3 wrote:
| Doesn't mean they like it
| V-2 wrote:
| Sure, but such cognitive dissonance usually gets resolved
| in the long run, and the easiest way is to somehow
| convince yourself you're doing the right thing after all.
| reaperducer wrote:
| That sounds like every excuse-making Facebook and Google
| employee on HN.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Some do. They are the ones who make careers in sales.
| They enjoy the challenge of getting people to buy stuff
| that they really don't want.
| c0nsumer wrote:
| Moving tooling is Hard, and the OSS stuff frankly sucks in
| comparison.
|
| Give the Affinity [1] suite a serious look. It's not Photoshop
| or Illustrator, but for many users it really is a functional
| alternative and much of the tooling works similarly enough that
| it's usable (unlike much of the OSS stuff which just gets
| maddening). Pricing is also very sane.
|
| [1] https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
| yabudemada wrote:
| If you do, please be sure to donate (time or money) to the open
| source projects to help better them! This is how open source
| can exceed commercial software. At the very worst case, if the
| projects tumble there's always a possibility to "fork" as an
| insurance policy.
| vz8 wrote:
| We do, and thanks for mentioning it, it's worth bringing up.
|
| We donate to various projects: on Github, FSF, EFF, direct to
| a developers, and even Patreon in one case.
|
| Autodesk had our money for a while, then we moved to use and
| support Blender and never looked back.
|
| ... we even bought a license to WinRAR, I kid you not.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| WinRAR isn't Open Source. I'm curious though, why go with
| rar rather than, say, 7z?
| vz8 wrote:
| On our devices with Windows, we use the built-in tools,
| 7-zip and WinRAR (on a single workstation).
|
| Mentioning WinRAR was a bit of a joke.
| yarcob wrote:
| Holy shit that's awful.
|
| I thought the advantage of subscription software is that you
| don't need to pay an expensive one time fee if you need
| software just for a short project. But if they make it hard to
| cancel, that really sucks.
|
| I'm so glad I moved away from Adobe...
| danpalmer wrote:
| If you're doing what I think you are, this is not possible
| except in the month that your yearly contract renews. I went
| through the same thing.
|
| You've most likely got yearly licences that you pay off
| monthly, which means you can only modify on a yearly basis, so
| they don't let you modify most of the year.
| veselin wrote:
| What concerns me when reading such articles is that if lying is
| so prevalent and there is still no action against the bad actors,
| then the GDPR tracking checkboxes on many sites are likely also
| just sent to /dev/null?
|
| At least in my experience, one gets subscribed to many things
| they explicitly opted out from. It is very easy to say later if
| somebody digs to just say yes was clicked instead of no or there
| was a bug affecting a small portion of their traffic.
| jonnypotty wrote:
| Insurance company I use to work for made it really difficult to
| actually buy their car insurance online cos they'd virtually
| always loose money if you bought their online deals. The website
| tried to get you to phone with your quote so that sales reps
| could bump your price up for basically no reason. If this was too
| much then they'd pretend to talk to their manager for a few mins
| to "see if they could get you a good deal" come back on the phone
| and make up another price for you. Worked on old people best.
| Lovely.
| nicbou wrote:
| Did it increase total profit? I won't pick up the phone unless
| I have no other option, and I won't call someone just to get a
| quote. Besides, those sales rep cost money too.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I bet it doesn't make any more profit than an equivalent
| service managed fully online, but making all the people in
| the current operation redundant is "politically" difficult
| (or even impossible/very costly depending on employment laws)
| so they continue as-is.
| kmfrk wrote:
| Is there a decent domain blocklist of the offending scripts used
| for this?
| jacquesm wrote:
| deny: all
|
| allow: news.ycombinator.com
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(page generated 2021-01-30 23:00 UTC)