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Central Consumer Protection Authority Notification

The Central Consumer Protection Authority in India has issued new guidelines to regulate and prevent dark patterns used online. Dark patterns are dishonest user interface techniques used by websites and apps to manipulate, mislead, or exploit consumers. The guidelines specify 13 common dark patterns, including false urgency, forced actions, subscription traps, and disguised advertisements. The goal is to protect consumers and promote transparency in the online marketplace. Any platform, advertiser, or seller that uses these dark patterns could face penalties from the Central Consumer Protection Authority.

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55 views3 pages

Central Consumer Protection Authority Notification

The Central Consumer Protection Authority in India has issued new guidelines to regulate and prevent dark patterns used online. Dark patterns are dishonest user interface techniques used by websites and apps to manipulate, mislead, or exploit consumers. The guidelines specify 13 common dark patterns, including false urgency, forced actions, subscription traps, and disguised advertisements. The goal is to protect consumers and promote transparency in the online marketplace. Any platform, advertiser, or seller that uses these dark patterns could face penalties from the Central Consumer Protection Authority.

Uploaded by

shrey
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CENTRAL CONSUMER PROTECTION AUTHORITY NOTIFICATION

New Delhi, the 30th November, 2023

In exercise of the powers conferred by section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (35 of 2019),
the Central Consumer Protection Authority hereby issues the following guidelines to provide for the
prevention and regulation of dark patterns and shall come into force on the date of its publication in the
Official Gazette.

These guidelines aim to protect consumers from dishonest practices and promote transparency
in the online marketplace. They apply to all platforms that systematically offer goods or services
in India, advertisers, and sellers

The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) had listed out specific dark patterns, termed as “Specified
Dark patterns”, in the draft guidelines. It was stated that the guidelines would also cover additional
patterns that the Central Consumer Protection Authority may specify from time to time.

CCPA has specified 13 dark patterns to provide only as guidance for the industry. Initially, CCPA had
identified 10 dark patterns but after the public consultation another three were included that are trick
questions, saas billing and rogue malwares.

Any person, including any platform, shall be considered to be engaging in a dark pattern practice if it
engages in any practice specified in the guidelines. And In case of any ambiguity or dispute in
interpretation of the guidelines, the decision of the Central Consumer Protection Authority shall be final.

As per Annexure 1 of the notification, the following have been specified as Dark Pattern practices

1. False Urgency: Falsely stating or implying the sense of urgency or scarcity so as to mislead a
user into making an immediate purchase or take an immediate action, which may lead to
purchase.
2. Basket sneaking: Inclusion of additional items such as products, services, payments to
charity/donation at the time of checkout from a platform, without the consent of the user,
such that the total amount payable by the user is more than the amount payable.
3. Confirm shaming” means using a phrase, video, audio or any other means to create a sense
of fear or shame or ridicule or guilt in the mind of the user so as to nudge the user to act in a
certain way that results in the user purchasing a product or service from the platform or
continuing a subscription of a service, primarily for the purpose of making commercial gains
by subverting consumer choice.
4. Forced action: Forcing a user into taking an action that would require the user to buy any
additional good or subscribe or sign up for an unrelated service, in order to buy or subscribe
to the product originally intended by the use.
The CPA has added additional cases to illustrate what a forced action means:
Forcing a user to share personal information linked with Aadhar or credit card
Forcing a user to share details of his contacts or social networks
Making it difficult for consumers to understand and alter their privacy settings, thereby
encouraging them to give more personal information
5. “Subscription trap” means Trap related to subscription facilities.
(i) making cancellation of a paid subscription impossible or a complex and lengthy
process;
(ii) hiding the cancellation option for a subscription; or
(iii) forcing a user to provide payment details or authorization for auto debits for
availing a free subscription; or
(iv) making the instructions related to cancellation of subscription ambiguous, latent,
confusing, cumbersome.

6. “Interface interference” means a design element that manipulates the user interface in
ways that (a) highlights certain specific information; and (b) obscures other relevant
information relative to the other information; to misdirect a user from taking an action as
desired.
7. Bait and switch: The practice of advertising a particular outcome based on the users'
action but deceptively serving an alternate outcome.
8. Drip pricing: Practices related to elements of prices.
9. Disguised advertisement: A practice of posing, masking advertisements as other
types of content such as user generated content or new articles or false
advertisements.
10. Nagging: A dark pattern due to which users face an overload of requests,
information, options or interruptions unrelated to the intended purchase of good or
services which disrupts the intended transaction.
11. Trick Question: The guidelines define trick question as the deliberate use of
confusing or vague language, using double negative, and similar actions in order to
“misguide or misdirect” a user from taking decisions based on their understanding.
12. Saas billing: This form of dark pattern refers to the process of “generating and
collecting payments from consumers on a recurring basis in a software as a service
(SaaS) business model by exploiting positive acquisition loops in recurring
subscriptions
13. Rogue Malwares” means using a ransomware or scareware to mislead or trick user
into believing there is a virus on their computer and aims to convince them to pay
for a fake malware removal tool that actually installs malware on their computer.

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