Deceptive Marketing.pdf

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
vivek.sin.chan@gmail.com
Deceptive Marketing | Black-Range of Digital Marketing
By VIVEK CHAN
Deceptive Marketing (also known as “dark Marketing”) are tricks used in websites and apps that
make you do things that you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something. The purpose of
this site is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use these patterns.
How does Deceptive Marketing work?
When you use websites and apps, you don’t read every word on every page — you skim read and
make assumptions. If a company wants to trick you into doing something, they can take advantage
of this by making a page look like it is saying one thing when it is in fact saying another. You can
defend yourself by learning about deceptive marketing.
Types of Deceptive Marketing
Trick questions
While filling in a form you respond to a question that tricks you into giving an answer you didn’t
intend. When glanced upon quickly the question appears to ask one thing, but when read carefully it
asks another thing entirely.
This is very common when registering with a service. Typically a series of checkboxes is shown, and
the meaning checkboxes is alternated so that ticking the first one means “opt out” and the second
means “opt in”. Confusing language is often also used. Currys PC World provides a good example of
this on their checkout collection page, as shown below.

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Trick Question
Opt-in and Opt-out
Sneak into basket
You attempt to purchase something, but somewhere in the purchasing journey the site sneaks an
additional item into your basket, often through the use of an opt-out radio button or checkbox on a
prior page.
godaddy.com provides a perfect example. On their site you can search for a domain name to buy, as
shown below:

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godaddy
website screenshot
Let’s imagine you pick the “get 3 and save 69%” bundle, priced at $17.00. The next page (below)
automatically adds privacy protection to your basket, priced at $7.99. What’s not clearly explained
here is that because you’re buying four domains, it’s actually quadruple the price shown (4 x $7.99 =
$31.96).
godaddy website screenshot

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When you arrive on the cart page below, you’ll find the price has somehow inflated to $154.31. This is
a far cry from the $17.00 indicated on the first page. A number of things have been sneaked into the
basket — 2 years of domain registration for all four domains (instead of one year, as indicated on the
pricing on the first page), and the privacy protection. To add to this, the actual pricing of each item
was misleading on the first page.
godaddy website
screenshot
Roach motel
The design makes it very easy for you to get into a certain situation, but then makes it hard for
you to get out of it (e.g. a subscription).
Ticket sales sites Livenation and Ticketmaster have engaged in a roach motel practices for a number
of years. When purchasing some types of tickets, they try to sneak a subscription to a magazine
(typically Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly) into your basket via a trick question on the
checkout page, shown below. Note that the design is “opt out” — the purchase is made for you
automatically unless you notice the checkbox and realise you need to tick it to opt out.

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Roach motel
screenshot
The roach motel aspect of this design becomes apparent if you realise too late that you’ve
purchased the subscription. The only way to get a rebate is to download a form, print it out fill it in
with a pen, put it in an envelope with a stamp and sent it to them via snail mail.
Friend spam
The product asks for your email or social media permissions under the pretence it will be used for a
desirable outcome (e.g. finding friends), but then spams all your contacts in a message that claims
to be from you.
The most famous example of this type of deceptive design was used by Linkedin, which resulted in
them being fined $13 million dollars as part of a class action lawsuit in 2015.
As part of the sign-up process to Linkedin, they encourage you to give them access to your email
account, on the premise that it will give “your career a strong network” (see below). The hidden
agenda is that they want this access so they can secretly send invitation emails to all of your
contacts, falsely claiming to be sent by you rather than by Linkedin.

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linkedin
Friend spam screenshot
If you allow yourself to be guided through the steps, you’re taken to the page shown below. If you
click the innocent-sounding button “Add to network” you are inadvertently giving Linkedin
permission to spam every person you’ve ever emailed.
linkedin
Friend spam screenshot
In the Perkins v. LinkedIn class action law suit (2015), this practice was found to be illegal under
California Law. If you were a member of LinkedIn’s “add connection” program between September
2011 and October 2014, you were able to submit a claim to get a payout of around $10.

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Forced continuity
When your free trial with a service comes to an end and your credit card silently starts getting
charged without any warning. You are then not given an easy way to cancel the automatic renewal.
Affinion Group is an international loyalty programme company that runs a number of programmes
including Completesavings.co.uk. They use a variety of different deceptive design practices.
They partner with a range of legitimate ecommerce businesses, such as thetrainline.com, below:
trainline
forced continuity screenshot
When you buy a ticket, everything works the way you’d expect it to. You select your ticket, then
proceed through the payment screens as shown below:

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trainline
When you complete the process, you are taken to a confirmation page, as shown below. The top box
of content on the page is a disguised ad, using the same font and the same dark blue button style
used by thetrainline.com. Having clicked a continue button a few times during the checkout process,
you’re very likely to think you need to click this button too, just to finish your booking. In fact, this
isn’t true.
trainline
When you click the continue button, you’re taken to another site (one-time-offer.com), which tries
to convince you to sign up for a £20 money-off voucher.

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trainline
If you sign up to this service, you are enrolled into a £15 a month subscription which continues
forever (a form of bait and switch). Many articles and forum posts on the web indicate that most
people only realise this when they notice unusual charges on their bank statements and amount is
small most of time so nobody bothers to do anything about it.
Confirmshaming
Confirmshaming is the act of guilting the user into opting in to something. The option to decline is
worded in such a way as to shame the user into compliance. The most common use is to get a user
to sign up for a mailing list, and it is often found in exit intent modals and other popups. In the
screenshot below, Google uses confirmshaming to discourage users from opting out.
Confirmshaming screenshot
Disguised ads
Adverts that are disguised as other kinds of content or navigation, in order to get you to click on
them.

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Softpedia is a popular software download site. One of their sources of revenue is display advertising.
They often run advertisements that look like a download button, tricking users into clicking on the
ads rather than getting the thing they wanted. In the screengrab below, the real download link is at
the top left of the page. The disguised ads are highlighted in red.
Disguised ads
screenshot
Bait and switch
The user sets out to do one thing, but a different, undesirable thing happens instead.
The most famous example of bait and switch was Microsoft’s misguided approach to getting people
to upgrade their computers to Windows 10.

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windows 10 Bait and
switch screenshot
During 2016, users of earlier versions of Windows where shown pop-up windows similar to that
pictured above. As the year progressed, Microsoft became increasingly aggressive with the pop-
ups. They started as an honest, optional call to action, but became increasingly deceptive. They
switched the meaning of the “X” button at the top right to mean the opposite of what it normally
means. In all other versions of Windows going back to the 1980s, this button means “close”. In this
specific instance, they changed it to mean “Yes, I do want to upgrade my computer to Windows 10”.
This caused a huge public backlash.
Hidden costs
You get to the last step of the checkout process, only to discover some unexpected charges
have appeared, e.g. delivery charges, tax, etc.
Proflowers is a flower retailer in the United States. They provide a perfect example of “hidden costs”.
Below you can see their home page. No mention of delivery, care or handling charges.

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Hidden cost deception
screenshot
When you add an item to your cart and proceed to the cart page (below), you see the price is exactly
as expected — no hint of any hidden charges.
Hidden cost deception
screenshot
So you go through the 6-step checkout process. In the 5th step, you fill in your credit card details
(below).

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Hidden cost
deception screenshot
Finally when you get to the “review order” page — having invested a lot of time choosing an item,
entering the delivery name, address & phone number, your credit card details, and your own name,
address, phone number, credit card details — you’re finally shown the hidden costs. $14.99 delivery
and $2.99 “care and handling”. By the time the hidden costs are revealed, you’ve already invested a
great deal of effort and you’re likely to feel fatigued. This is probably by design, so you’ll be more
willing to complete the purchase rather than have to give up and start all over again with another
website.
Hidden cost
deception screenshot

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Misdirection
The design purposefully focuses your attention on one thing in order to distract your attention
from another. Many deceptive designs use this trick in some way.
A good example is Australian low-cost airline jetstar.com:
jetstar
misdirection screenshot
To start off with, the site works pretty much as you’d expect. You do a search and pick the flights
you want. Then you get to the seats page, below:

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jetstar misdirection
screenshot
What’s deceptive is the way the page above presents your options: it uses misdirection to hide what
is actually happening here. When this page loads, they have already preselected a seat for you, at an
extra cost of $9 ($4.50 each way). This is deceptive for two reasons. Firstly you don’t get to opt in —
they have effectively sneaked it into your basket without you asking for it. Secondly, they’re
charging you extra to select a seat yourself, but you haven’t actually chosen one, so you’re
effectively paying for nothing. If you’re not concentrating, you might end up proceeding to the next
page having paid $9.
jetstar misdirection
screenshot

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Above you can see more of the body of the page, which is entirely devoted to seat selection, heavily
promoting higher priced upgrades (“extra leg room” or “up front”). If you’re really concentrating,
you’ll scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page without clicking any of that stuff, and you’ll
eventually get to the small text at the very bottom.
jetstar
misdirection screenshot
Above you can see a tiny link below the “CONTINUE” button that reads “skip seat selection”. That’s
what you have to click in order to avoid paying for the unwanted seat upgrade.
According to the Jetstar site, they run over 4000 flights per week — which works out as 208,000
flights per year. If every customer is caught out by this trick ($4.50 per flight), this accounts for
almost $1 million of profit each year.
Privacy zuckering
You are tricked into publicly sharing more information about yourself than you really intended to.
Named by Tim Jones as a homage to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In its early days, Facebook had a reputation for making it difficult for users to control their privacy
settings, and generally making it very easy to “overshare” by mistake. In response to feedback from
consumers and privacy groups, Facebook has created a clearer, easier to use privacy settings area.
Today, privacy zuckering seems to take place mainly behind the scenes, thanks to the data
brokerage industry. Here’s how it works: when you use a service (e.g. a store card), the small print
hidden in the Terms and Conditions gives them permission to sell your personal data to anyone. Data

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brokers buy it and combine it with everything else they find about you online into a profile, which
they then resell. Your profile may contain information about your sexual preferences, physical and
mental health. In theory your profile could result in you being refused services such as insurance or
loans. The industry is currently not well regulated and it is very difficult to opt out of having your data
brokered. See stopdatamining.me for more information.
The infographic below gives further details about the data brokerage industry (2015, webpagefx).

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Privacy Statics info-graphics
Price comparison prevention

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The retailer makes it hard for you to compare the price of an item with another item, so you cannot
make an informed decision.
Retailers typically achieve this by creating different bundles where it is not easy work out the unit
price of the items within the bundles. This was a common practice with mobile operators in the early
2000s. Some supermarkets (e.g. Sainsbury’s, shown below) still use a similar technique, selling
packaged products without showing the price per weight. This makes it impossible to work out
whether it’s cheaper to buy loose items (priced per weight) or packaged item (priced per packet).
In the screenshot of sainsburys.co.uk below, it is not possible to compare the price of the first item
to the second item.
Price
Comparison prevention screenshot
Who uses deceptive design?
Deceptive design is a rapidly growing area of research, particularly in the fields of Human Computer
Interaction (HCI) and Law. We’ve put together a big reading list for you to get up to speed.
CASE STUDIES
Google Maps now requires WiFi scanning to use navigation
“Google has now drawn a line in the sand. Give us all your local SSIDs, local bluetooth connections,
with likely even more detail, or they now refuse to allow you to use Maps to navigate.”
Google
| Feb 01, 2022

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The Psychology Behind Amazon’s Purchase Experience
A critical analysis of Amazon’s purchasing user journey (spoiler: contains dark patterns!)
Amazon
| Dan Benoni & Louis-Xavier Lavallee | Jan 31, 2022
Reddit manipulates users into installing mobile app
Reddit is famous for their relentless interruptions to their web experience in pushing users towards
their native mobile app. Here they experiment with a “cheeky” nudge about cats and dogs.
Reddit
| Szprinktrap | Jan 18, 2022
Steinberg requires users to subscribe to a newsletter before using one of their products
This modal dialog box requires users to subscribe to a mandatory newsletter.
Steinberg
| agirres | Jan 17, 2022
Facebook makes it tricky to decline an invitation
The user needs to click a small button labelled “…” then select “Decline”, then ignore the main button
(despite it being the thing they requested) and select the less obvious secondary button labelled
“Confirm”.
Facebook
| Zach Collier | Jan 16, 2022
Venmo’s payment protection feature allows the buyer to add a fee that the sender pays — without
their consent
“Venmo has a feature where the person that you’ve requested payment from can opt into payment
protection, which adds a 1.9% fee to the transaction that the requestor pays without any sort of
consent or control if opted into. It’s a dark pattern that I can’t believe is legal.”
Venmo
| witchoria | Jan 10, 2022
Norton and Avast install crytpominer software without user consent
“Norton360 isn’t the only antivirus product installing cryptominers. Avira, a “free” antivirus product
w/ > 500M users, recently introduced users to Avira Crypto. Avira is now owned by NortonLifeLock,
which also just bought Avast antivirus (500M users)”
Norton
Avast
| Brian Krebs | Jan 08, 2022
NYT subscription takes much-longer to cancel than to create.
Cancelling this New York Times subscription took about 8 minutes. Most of the time was just waiting
for the CS rep to respond in live chat.
New York Times
| Darkpatterns.org | Jan 07, 2022

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In order to refuse cookies, Facebook makes users click a button titled “Accept Cookies”. You have to
laugh
“In order to refuse the deposit of cookies,m internet users must click on a button entitled “Accept
cookies”, displayed in the second window.”
Facebook
| Mark Di Stefano | Jan 06, 2022
Barclays bank “Tick the box if you don’t want us to tell you about offers…”
“Now I know why I’m getting marketing material posted to me when I thought I’d turned this off”
Barclays
| kimeshan_ | Jan 06, 2022
Twitter’s “Install App” modal dialogue prompt on top of all the content is a form of user abuse
“The company should know by now, based on the dozens of previous rejections: I’m not interested!”
Twitter
| Metadat | Jan 01, 2022
Why is it so easy to rack up huge bills from AWS without intending?
Are they purposefully neglecting to create cost control, projection and notification features?
Amazon
| darkpatterns.org | Dec 14, 2021
Verizon’s tracking feature is opt out, so customers will be tracked without their knowledge.
This is a #privacy nightmare and an utter disgrace. @Verizon you are a pipe to the internet and that
is all. I am appalled you would think you have the right to track and monetize my activity.
Verizon
| Burley | Dec 14, 2021
Ebay’s mandatory marketing emails
If you register with http://ebay.co.uk using the “sign in with google” feature, you get automatically
opted in to marketing emails.
Ebay
| Ebay | Dec 13, 2021
Intersport.de uses fake “X visitors are looking at this product right now” component.
On the intersport.de website, a random number generator was used to fake live consumer interest
on product listing pages
Intersport
| darkpatterns | Jul 04, 2021
Docker Hub has a delay when users opt out of tracking, and no delay when users opt.
“ummmm @Docker Hub cookies preferences take 20 seconds to be processed.. is this a @TrustArc
technical challenge or a dark pattern? #darkpatterns”

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TrustArc
Docker Hub
| BogdanCovrig | Jul 01, 2021
Pitchbook.com provides users no way to opt out of cookies.
Despite this being a legal requirement in various legal jurisdictions, pitchbook.com forces users to
“consent” to cookies if they wish to enter the website.
Pitchbook.com
| ThatDesignFeel | Jul 01, 2021
Akismet uses a random number generator to show a fake live counter on their home page.
A random number is added to the true count of “spam comments blocked to date” to simulate a live
counter
Akismet
| OnarAlili | Jun 30, 2021
Robinhood to pay $70 million fine after causing ‘widespread and significant harm’ to customers.
“[…] customers received false or misleading information from Robinhood on a variety of issues,
including how much money customers had in their accounts, whether they could place trades on
margin and more.”
Robinhood
| Alicia Adamczyk | Jun 30, 2021
The New Yorker sends a fake “final demand” letter to trick users into resubscribing.
The letter reads “statement of account” “FINAL NOTICE” except it’s just an invitation to renew a
subscription that would otherwise expire.
The New Yorker
| joelanman | Jun 28, 2021
Linkedin limits user choice to drive engagement.
Linkedin asks the user a yes/no question but instead of allowing the user to answer “no”, the button
reads “No, show me more”
Linkedin
| SimonGabriel | Jun 28, 2021
Ex-reddit engineering manager admits to the dark patterns they built while working there.
“Yes, power users complain — and still continue using the site — but the casual user does not. These
dark patterns have been normalized on other websites. These practices are done because it works”
Reddit
| Wting | Jun 26, 2021
Dark Patterns in Google Ads.
Google has recently rebranded its Adwords advertising platform to Google Ads. Together with the
new name, the interface also got a big overhaul. And as someone who spends many hours of every
day on the platform, I can’t say I’m happy with the results.

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Google
| Dennis | Jun 12, 2021
Unknown: Confirmshaming.
“No, I don’t like savings”
Unknown
| Steve_Bromley | Mar 14, 2021
Checking in on Fast.
For those of you that don’t know, Fast is a one-click and login checkout tool. To date, they’ve been
primarily focused on ecommerce sites which puts them up against the likes of Shop Pay, Apple Pay
and other simple purchase solutions…
Fast
| Chris Frantz | Mar 12, 2021
Windows: Edge promotion.
Wow, the dark patterns in Windows to keep you on Edge are quite something. Search bing for
Chrome leads to huge banner promo for Edge. Changing the default browser pops up promo for
Edge.
Microsoft
| cramforce | Mar 11, 2021
Humble: placement of ‘Add to Cart’ button.
Really disappointed in @humble for this UI design. The “add to cart” button adds a monthly
subscription but is strategically placed to make users believe it will just get them the bundle instead.
Not cool, @humble. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Humble
| Metallion98 | Mar 11, 2021
T-Mobile will sell your web-usage data to advertisers unless you opt out.
Data sales begin April 26 unless you opt out; T-Mobile claims it’ll be anonymous.
T-Mobile
| Jon Brodkin | Mar 09, 2021
Figma: Hidden fees & pricing model.
Hey @figmadesign, could you please tell people that they’re being charged extra money if they
submit this form with the “can edit” option? And maybe explain your pricing model INSIDE the app?
Figma
| greg00r | Mar 09, 2021
Unknown: cancelling subscription.
This is how the software company does its best to raise the threshold for purchasing a cloud service.
You can’t get out of the contract without talking to the “customer success team”.

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Unknown
| Noste | Mar 09, 2021
Talkspace, Headspace and Betterhelp: “data brokers”.
Yeah, unfortunately @talkspace @Headspace and @betterhelp are not therapy providers — they are
data brokers mining your most intimate conversations & reselling them to 3rd parties incl.
advertisers. You should not use them under any circumstances.
Talkspace
Headspace
Betterhelp
| nandoodles | Mar 09, 2021
Jumbo app: hidden skip button.
Look at this dark pattern bullshit. Finding the skip button isn’t supposed to be a game.
Jumbo
| dankim | Mar 08, 2021
Confluent: Free credits.
Received a surprise bill of $700+ USD from @confluentinc I believe I got this bill due to dark patterns
in UX and I think Confluent can do *much better* to treat their customers right.
Confluent
| bartekci | Mar 07, 2021
Unknown: preferences opt-out.
Over 680 trackers and options for one webpage. “Accept all” or open each single item from a
dropdown to opt-out. This is insane.
Unknown
| lowresolution | Mar 05, 2021
LinkedIn: accessing messages.
When engagement metrics drive the decision. On the left, Twitter’s email with the direct message
text included. On the right, LinkedIn’s email forcing me to open the app to see the message. Drives
me Bananas every time!
Linkedin
| lil_dill | Mar 04, 2021
Xiaomi phones: Data collection.
When turning off data collection on Xiaomi phones, you need to turn off every single system app
and in between you need to wait 10 seconds.
Xiaomi
| InvisibleBryan | Mar 03, 2021
Asana: Per-seat pricing.
Is there any other well known SaaS company besides @asana that charges per-seat pricing but uses
this dark pattern

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Asana
| JeremyWeir | Mar 02, 2021
Zipcar: subscription plans.
What’s the difference between Zipcar’s $7, $8, and $10 plans?
Zipcar
| darkpatterns | Mar 02, 2021
Samsung: Marketing information settings.
Samsung’s stock health app now showing ads on a friend’s Samsung S9 phone, which he bought for
hundreds of €.
Samsung
| WolfieChristl | Mar 01, 2021
New York Times: cancel subscription.
New York Times makes it intentionally difficult and time consuming to cancel subscription.
#forcedcontinuance i finally had to cancel my credit card after trying on chat 3 times, being made to
wait and “dropped service”. For Shame
New York Times
| martylafl | Mar 01, 2021
EPIC Files D.C. Consumer Protection Complaint Against Amazon Over Unfair and Deceptive User
Interface
EPIC has filed a complaint with the D.C. Attorney General alleging that Amazon unlawfully employs
manipulative “dark patterns” in the Amazon Prime subscription cancellation process.
Amazon
| Feb 28, 2021
Unknown: cookie permissions menu.
This is the worst cookie permissions menu I’ve seen. You can’t tell what is turned on and what is off.
The default when the menu opens up is the top three, with off in gray. When you click on off, you see
both off and on without a gray filter. So is this on or off?
Unknown
| KimZetter | Feb 26, 2021
Can Clubhouse Move Fast Without Breaking Things?
The 11-month old audio social network is compelling. It also has some very grown-up problems.
Clubhouse
| Kevin Roose | Feb 25, 2021
Quartz: subscription details.
so quartz won’t even tell you how much it charges for a subscription unless you give it your email,
which automatically subscribes you to a newsletter

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Quartz
| juliacarriew | Feb 25, 2021
Orthofeet.com: Low stock message.
Low-stock Message on http://orthofeet.com. The message does not disclose the quantity in stock
to users and appears for all products on the website.
Orthofeet.com
| Mathur, Arunesh; Acar, Gunes; Friedman, Michael J.; Lucherini, Elena; Mayer, Jonathan; Chetty,
Marshini; Narayanan, Arvind | Feb 21, 2021
6pm.com: Low-stock message.
Low-stock Message on http://6pm.com. Choosing product options shows Only 3 left in stock. The
out-of-stock message makes it always seem that the item just sold out.
6pm.com
Spanx: Testimonials.
Testimonials on http://spanx.com. The website does not disclose how these were sourced, or
whether they were submitted by actual customers.
Spanx
JC Penney: Activity Notification.
Activity Notification on http://jcpenney.com highlighting the number of people who viewed the
product in the last day.
JC Penney
Thredup.com: Activity Notification.
Activity Notification on http://thredup.com highlighting the names and locations of those who
purchased the product. The message always signals sold products as “just saved”, regardless of the
real recency.
Thredup.com
Top Coat: Pressured selling.
Pressured Selling on http://topcoat.store. On adding a product to cart, a popup appears asking the
user to upgrade their purchase.
Top Coat

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New Balance: opt-out option.
Trick Questions on http://newbalance.co.uk. Normally, checkboxes are designed to be ticked to opt
in. In this case however, the user is required to tick to opt out.
New Balance
Greenfingers: opt-out option.
Visual Interference on http://greenfingers.com. The opt-out option is grayed out to indicate it is
disabled or cannot be clicked, when it can.
Greenfingers.com
Radioshack: confirmshaming.
Confirmshaming on http://radioshack.com. The option to dismiss the popup is framed to shame the
user into avoiding it.
Radioshack
Samsung.com: Limited Time.
Limited Time on http://samsung.com. The website states that the deal is “Limited Time Only”
without disclosing the deal’s deadline.
Samsung
Leesa.com: Countdown Timer.
Countdown Timer in a popup displayed on http://leesa.com. In this instance, the stated offer is valid
even after the half hour long timer expires.
Leesa.com
Justfab.com: Countdown timer.
Countdown Timer on http://justfab.com. In this instance, the stated offer is valid even after the hour
long timer expires.
JustFab
Justfab.com

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WSJwine: Hidden Subscription.
Hidden Subscription on http://wsjwine.com. Selecting the WSJwine Advantage option does not
reveal the recurring subscription of $89 unless “Learn More” is clicked on.
WSJwine
Ross-simons.com: VIP Rewards Club.
Hidden Subscription on http://ross-simons.com. Joining the VIP Rewards Club does not reveal the
recurring subscription of $95 unless “Terms and conditions” is clicked on.
Ross-simons.com
GameStop Hearing Exposes a Sick Business Model Destined to Exacerbate Wealth Inequality in
America
An exchange between Congresswoman Cindy Axne of Iowa and CEO of Robinhood Vlad Tenev
“opened a window into a sick business model on Wall Street that is pumping out billionaires like
Citadel’s Ken Griffin while seducing young people with the gamification of trading.”
Robinhood
| Pam Martens and Russ Martens | Feb 19, 2021
When FOMO Trumps Privacy: The Clubhouse Edition
Clubhouse, the new audio-based social media app… is gaining lots of attention. Part of its popularity
comes from it being pegged as the next social media giant. Beyond the hype, its epic product
privacy failures are what warrants scrutiny.
Clubhouse
| Lourdes Turrecha | Feb 19, 2021
Before buying a NYT subscription, here’s what it’ll take to cancel it .
Transcript of a 17 minute chat log of a consumer trying to cancel their New York Times subscription.
New York Times
| jandll | Feb 18, 2021
Fake countdown timer on Fabletics.com.
“Great limited time deal on http://fabletics.com @Fabletics. Oh wait… It’s a #darkpattern. The
countdown timer resets every time you refresh the page.”
Fabletics
| constanta_rosca | Feb 18, 2021
Clubhouse app makes it possible for users to pause notifications but not stop them completely from
the in-app settings.
Although it is possible to stop notifications via the iOS operating system settings, if the user goes
into the settings area of the clubhouse app, they are only able to temporarily pause notifications.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Clubhouse
| wichsp | Feb 15, 2021
Microsoft interrupts users during Windows boot sequence to nudge them to switch to Microsoft
Edge web browser.
Despite the user already having chosen their preferred web browser and search engine, Microsoft
forces users to consider switching to Edge and Bing. If the user is not paying attention, they may
mistakenly opt in to this change.
Microsoft
| KimbleyIT | Feb 15, 2021
Does ticking the boxes enable or disable data sharing and targeted ads?
The meaning of a “tick” is not described (does it mean opt in, or opt out?). This ambiguity will drive
higher opt-in rates.
EA
| airavn | Feb 02, 2021
CONFUSING BY DESIGN: A Data Protection Law Analysis of TikTok’s Privacy Policy
This report argues that TikTok does not comply with the GDPR in a number of ways.
Tiktok
| Dr. J. Ausloos & Dr. V. Verdoodt | Feb 01, 2021
Graze UK food brand uses extremely low contrast text to show calorie information.
This high calorie snack is packaged in a deceptive manner by prominently showing a calorie count
that appears to be for the whole packet, but upon closer inspection is just for a small portion. Further
information is hidden using illegible text.
Graze
| darkpatterns | Jan 28, 2021
Trello hides the link to sign up without a premium subscription .
“…this one nearly got me. @trello really wants you to use their free trial… the start without is juuust
below your view.”
Trello
Atlassian
| ohhellohellohii | Jan 27, 2021
Lyft priority mode gives drivers extra work but comes with a 10% pay cut.
“I learned about a new feature Lyft quietly rolled out a few months ago. Drivers hate it. It’s called
priority mode and Lyft pitches it to drivers as a way to “stay busy… We’ll prioritize you over other
drivers.” But it comes with a 10% pay cut.”
Lyft
| darakerr | Jan 22, 2021
Youtube uses a hidden opt-out button in a full-screen premium upsell.
“Getting desperate now? This came up when I opened the @YouTube app. I don’t want premium. I

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
don’t want a trial. I’ve said that at least a hundred times so far, now this without even a close button.
Talk about @darkpatterns
Google
| Bigolslabomeat | Jan 20, 2021
Internations.org uses Roach Motel and Forced Continuity Dark Patterns.
The German “expat community” website @Internationsorglures their members into automatically
renewing membership subscription plans & charges their credit cards without prior notification for
yearly membership fees. If an @Internationsorg member decides not willing to accept that the
Albatross membership was automatically renewed, they force their #darkpatterns on them by hiding
the “downgrade” & “delete profile” options from the user interface & threat their members with debt
collectors.
Internations.org
| KristinaVonK | Jan 17, 2021
The Norwegian Consumer Council files a legal complaint against Amazon for breaches of the Unfair
Commercial Practices Directive, regarding the the cancellation process for Amazon Prime.
The Norwegian Consumer Council’s study analysed the cancellation process for Amazon Prime. The
analysis shows that consumers who want to leave the service are faced with a large number of
hurdles, including complicated navigation menus, skewed wording, confusing choices, and repeated
nudging. Throughout the process, Amazon manipulates users through wording and graphic design,
making the process needlessly difficult and frustrating to understand.
Amazon
| Finn Myrstad & Øyvind H. Kaldestad | Jan 14, 2021
The UPS Legal Agreement is hard to read, requring the user to scroll through the entire document
with just 10 lines visible.
This is a very long legal agreement that the user can only read 10 lines at a time, making it more likely
for users to give up and proceed, unawares of the content of the document.
UPS
| fonix232 | Jan 12, 2021
Netflix, HBO, YouTube and Amazon Prime: Missing stop buttons.
The traditional square stop-button has been disappearing from media players across the board. This
seems like a deliberate trend; a subtle tactic to keep you “captive” — don’t present the user with any
obvious option to stop watching and they will be less likely to think to.
Netflix
HBO
Youtube
| mindplaydk | Dec 30, 2020
The Telegraph uses the term “Legitimate Interest” in which to hide the means to opt out of
personalised ads and ad tracking.
“Legitimate Interest sounds like “you say no, but we’re making it legitimate to track you”. So I don’t
consent but you still have a legitimate right to have relationship with my privacy? How does that
work? ”

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
The Telegraph
| PtitBen | Dec 30, 2020
Google: Enabling YouTube history.
Google appear to be tricking the user into ‘enabling YouTube history’ (in this case it had been
disabled) so that the user can then ‘choose an auto-delete option’ for that history.
Google
| croppyboi | Dec 28, 2020
Baremetrics make it very hard to cancel premium subscriptions.
“Before you use, or subscribe to @Baremetrics, please make sure you read this. This happened
today. I went to their app to try & unsubscribe because we feel that Stripe’s own dashboard is good
enough for us after they added reporting specifically.
Baremetrics
| cmdkhalilov | Dec 22, 2020
Oddballs: Promoting non-existent discount.
Maybe don’t say there’s a chance to get a 25% discount when its literally impossible
Oddballs
| Mr__Nitrogen | Dec 07, 2020
A fake “wheel of fortune” game of chance that is impossible to win on myoddballs.com
“@myoddballs Maybe don’t say there’s a chance to get a 25% discount when its literally impossible”
myoddballs.com
| Mr__Nitrogen | Dec 07, 2020
Ikea’s cookie agree button pops up right on top of the “go” button right before you click it.
If the user attempts to click go, the cookie pop-up may appear directly below their cursor just as
they are about to click, causing them to inadvertently opt in to tracking.
Ikea
| shadic108 | Nov 30, 2020
Peacock TV: Unsubscribe.
When you try to find the unsubscribe button from peacock emails. Dark gray on a dark black
background.
Peacock TV
| gtfohbitchass | Nov 22, 2020
How Facebook decided to capitalise on your muscle memory .
The instagram redesign involved moving a new shopping button to where the “like” button used to
be, causing many users to tap it by mistake.
Instagram
Facebook
| kwiecinski_one | Nov 20, 2020

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Is the New Instagram Update a New Form of Dark Pattern?
In the last days, the most recent Instagram update has been in the news for the worst reasons. Many
users and influencers have publicly spoken out their dissatisfaction, namely James Charles, who, in a
rant video, advised his followers not to update their apps.
Instagram
| Mariana V | Nov 19, 2020
Google Calendar: Auto-adding Google Meet when others are added to an event.
Google Calendar has always had a “Add Google Meet / Google Hangout” option on calendar
meeting invites, but recently auto-adds the Google Meet if you add others to the calendar invite,
without any notification.
Google
| osiris679 | Nov 16, 2020
Apple iOS14: Pestering to install Siri.
Upgraded to iOS 14. Apple says “setup hey Siri” and has “setup later in settings” under it in small text
Tap that, then continue with normal Siri Giant red 1 on settings Have to repeat above Also have to
reenable dictation on my keyboard.
Apple
| JoinMyFramily0118999 | Nov 06, 2020
Marktplaats.nl: Unsolicited marketing emails.
Marktplaats.nl saves your email and spams you even if you don’t finish registering for an account
Marktplaats.nl
| Anon | Oct 31, 2020
Dark patterns in US election websites
Before the American election we compared the experience of donating money to Donald Trump vs
Joe Biden through their websites. Who uses dark patterns to trick users into donating more?
Trump
| Unusable podcast | Oct 29, 2020
Booking.com pretends that it has a working button for delete account.
The account deletion process requires the user to check their email. This makes the process
unnecessarily difficult.
Booking.com
| Joliejule | Oct 26, 2020
All the President’s Spam
“A group of researchers at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP)
has just published the findings of its research into a collection of 100,000 political emails, including
those from the Trump campaign. It found that the majority of emails used “dark patterns” to
manipulate voters and trick donors.”

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Trump
| Stephen Hutcheon, Inga Ting and Katia Shatoba | Oct 22, 2020
Beekting: guidance for creating Dark Patterns.
Beekting.com provides customers with instructions on how to create fake notifications that play on
cognitive biases.
Beekting
| harrybr | Oct 20, 2020
Belvita Breakfast Golden Oats packaging shows misleading information about calories.
Deceptive food packaging is everywhere. This packaging recommends that you eat 4 biscuits as
part of a “balanced breakfast” but the calorie figures are for an 11.25g serving, which turns out to be
just a single biscuit.
Belvita
| elocemearg | Oct 10, 2020
Trump’s campaign lures donors with absurd financial promises — and insults
“Whereas some campaigns might communicate with supporters for the purpose of grass-roots
organizing, the Trump emails I receive have only one purpose: to gin up contributions. And the
solicitations are unlike any I’ve ever seen. Tonally, they diverge wildly from those of past presidential
campaigns — or from anything that might be termed “presidential” at all.”
Trump
| Ben Adler | Oct 09, 2020
Psychology Today: Unsubscribe.
Psychology Today website is a roach motel. You can’t remove your credit card info, you can only
change it. There is no way to stop the service through their website interface. Have to contact them
to get it stopped.
Psychology Today
| bzipitidoo | Oct 07, 2020
Tesla: Butt-dialed upgrades.
Tesla owner says he butt-dialed a $4,280 Autopilot upgrade — and is still waiting on a refund. Dr. Ali
Vaziri says he was charged for a $4,280 software upgrade for his Tesla without even being aware of
opening the app. Other Tesla users have reported similar problems.
Tesla
| Lora Kolodny | Oct 07, 2020
FT.com: Cancelling subscription.
FT.com, making it very easy to sign up for a monthly charge of 28 € instead of cancelling
subscription which was my intended purpose.
FT.com
| buheeh | Oct 05, 2020

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Spectrum cable: Support chat.
I’m pretty sure I observed a dark pattern with Spectrum cable’s support chat. If I am right, they’re
trying to weed out people by making them wait as a sort of barrier to using chat.
Spectrum Cable
| adhd | Sep 29, 2020
When you opt out of cookies in wwe.com, it shows a processing screen which takes about a minute
to complete. If you click ‘accept’, it is processed instantly .
This website uses a privacy management tool called TrustArc which makes it much slower to opt out
of tracking than to opt in.
wwe.com
TrustArc
| Glassput | Sep 21, 2020
Apple OS 16: tracking settings.
When confirming preferences to ‘Allow Apps to Request to Track’, the text is confusing and does not
make it clear whether apps are not allowed to track the user, or won’t have to ask before tracking
them.
Apple
| airavn | Sep 17, 2020
Strava: Flyby privacy settings.
Running and cycling app Strava’s Flyby privacy settings are automatically set to be shared with
everyone. Thus users passing one another will be tagged in each other’s runs, and able to access
their full name, picture and a map of their running route.
Strava
| MrAndrew | Sep 14, 2020
How campaigns use manipulative tricks to convince you to open their emails
“A new study out of Princeton shows that the vast majority of campaigns use dark patterns and
clickbait subject lines to beg for donations.”
Trump
| Mark Sullivan | Sep 10, 2020
ABC Mouse: charging and renewing memberships without consent.
Children’s Online Learning Program ABCmouse failed to disclose important information to
consumers, leading many consumers to be renewed & charged for memberships without their
consent
ABCMouse
| Sep 02, 2020
Statement of Commissioner Rohit Chopra Regarding Dark Patterns in the Matter of Age of Learning,
Inc. Commission File Number 1723186
“At a time when many parents are looking for more opportunities for educational enrichment online,
it is disappointing that services like ABCmouse have scammed millions of dollars from families

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
through dark patterns, as alleged in the Commission’s complaint. By making it extremely difficult to
cancel recurring subscription fees, ABCmouse engaged in conduct that was not only unethical, but
also illegal.”
ABCMouse
| Rohit Chopra | Sep 02, 2020
HBL: App issuing unwanted bank loans.
A loan popup screen appears when a user logs in to Pakistani bank HBL’s app. It features a picture,
some text and Yes/No buttons to begin evaluation of your loan, all in English. This could lead to users
who did not want a loan getting one and paying it back with 25–35% interest.
HBL
| thoraoffbeat | Sep 01, 2020
StoriesOnBoard: subscription cancellations.
StoriesOnBoard does not allow users to cancel their subscription without sending an email or
starting a support chat.
StoriesOnBoard
| afuerstenau | Aug 27, 2020
Wired: consent management platform.
Wired’s consent management platform shows unselected settings as having ‘Objection applied’. A
box to opt-in is labelled ‘Remove objection’. Using the word ‘objection’ implies shaming the user for
not having opted in.
Wired
| 1Br0wn | Aug 22, 2020
Tfl App: Privacy settings.
The Tfl App’s Privacy Settings offer a ‘Accept All’ but no ‘Reject All’ option. For users not wanting to
Accept All the option is to ‘Manage Cookies’ which then leads the requirement to ‘Manage Partners’.
Users may find this time-consuming and non-transparent.
Tfl
| PrivacyMatters | Aug 22, 2020
Wired: How Facebook and Other Sites Manipulate Your Privacy Choices
Social media platforms repeatedly use so-called dark patterns to nudge you toward giving away
more of your data.
Facebook
Twitter
Linkedin
Instagram
Snapchat
| Arielle Pardas | Aug 12, 2020

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Now TV: subscription cancellation.
Now TV takes subscribers wishing to cancel through multiple screens asking them if they’re sure
they wish to cancel before letting them select ‘I still want to cancel’.
NowTV
| JamieJBartlett | Aug 04, 2020
Wired: How to Spot — and Avoid — Dark Patterns on the Web
You’ve seen them before: the UX ploys designed to trick you into spending money, or make it nearly
impossible to unsubscribe. Here’s what to look out for.
Rosetta Stone
| Eric Ravenscraft | Jul 29, 2020
A thread about nutrition information labels on prepacked food in the UK, and how they can be
manipulated.
“While nutrition and food labelling is in the news, here’s a thread about the nutrition information
labels which are required to appear on prepacked food in the UK, and how they can be manipulated
with increasingly absurd definitions of a “serving”. Examples follow…”
Cadburys
Pladis
Batchelors
Nestle
| elocemearg | Jul 29, 2020
Fake timer, sneak-into-basket and false assertions used on Trump’s donation website.
Numerous dark patterns employed by the Trump campaign.
Trump
| ChetMcAwsomLazr | Jul 22, 2020
You must allow marketing notifications to be able to use Amazon’s charity donation programme in
the app.
Amazon requires the user to turn on device notifications in order to use AmazonSmile.
Amazon
| flippityjibbits | Jul 21, 2020
Care.com: Unsubscribe.
I’m still not sure how to unsubscribe from care.com
Care.com
| DrummerBoyDibs | Jul 04, 2020
New York Times Makes Subscription Cancellations ‘Exceedingly Difficult’ for Consumers, Class
Action Lawsuit Alleges
A class action lawsuit was filed in June 2020, alleging that the New York Times has been violating
California law by automatically renewing consumers’ subscriptions without proper authorization and
making it “exceedingly difficult” to cancel existing subscriptions.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
New York Times
| Jerry Lambe | Jun 18, 2020
Airtable: hidden charges for sharing.
When a subscriber shares a link to an Airtable document, they are charged a year’s subscription fee
for each person a document is shared with. The charges are incurred without any notification or
warning.
Airtable
| harper | Jun 15, 2020
Google are loading ads a few seconds after the search results have loaded, making you accidentally
click them.
Although it’s arguable whether this was on purpose or not, it is likely to have driven ad revenue from
accidental clicks.
Google
| Brumcar | Jun 08, 2020
Coursera shows course as “Enroll for Free” but after a user signs in, it becomes a $39/month
premium subscription.
This coursera course looks free, which tempts users to register. Once they have registered, the
website reveals that the course is not free.
Coursera
| Lokipi | May 29, 2020
Discount Tire: Marketing unsubscribe.
Discount Tire Unsubscribe Dark Pattern? Here is default view.
Discount Tire
| mgbgtv8 | Apr 17, 2020
Dark patterns identified in the consent-obtaining mechanisms of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple,
and Microsoft
Qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big
tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM)
Facebook
Google
Microsoft
| SoheilHuman | Apr 15, 2020
The New Yorker: consent preferences.
The New Yorker’s consent preferences are unclear. The option for ‘Do Not Sell My Personal
Information’ appears to be on, implying the user has selected not to have their information sold, but
the instructions say to move it to the left to turn it off. This is confusing.
The New Yorker
| josh_zelonis | Mar 30, 2020

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Udemy: Advertising unobtainable price.
Udemy Course Dark Pattern for Price Discount, Happened on multiple courses as soon as I clicked
buy now or log in it would go back to the original price, I heard they were stealing professors lectures
as well and not compensating them or dealing with copyright well either.
Udemy
| nixwave | Mar 27, 2020
Ryanair: subscriber opt-out.
Ryanair’s text for subscribing to their mailing list says ‘If you don’t wish to receive these offers,
please opt-out’ but the tick box is checked by default. This is confusing for the user — do they need
to leave the box checked, or uncheck, to opt out?
Ryanair
| cynddl | Mar 09, 2020
Yousician: free trial.
Tried out @yousician, but sadly hit right away with @darkpatterns. Tap “Start with free trial” (primes
me that I’m not committing to anything yet), give finger ID (almost an habitual thing, as it’s required
for free apps too) and you just signed up to a 145 USD/y plan.
Yousician
| wwalmink | Feb 07, 2020
Conde Nast: consent preferences.
Look at this misleading crap from @CondeNast. The switch labeled “do not sell my personal info”
actually needs to be switched to OFF to keep info private, only explained in the small print. And even
though I clicked “do not sell” to get this popup, it’s set to ON by default!
Conde Nast
| eparillon | Feb 06, 2020
Netflix: misleading promotional email.
I’ve received an email from @netflix asking me to “finalise the signup” when I don’t remember
registering. Worried about the identity theft etc went to a chat & discovered this is a
“PROMOTIONAL EMAIL”.
Netflix
| StealthRadek | Feb 04, 2020
Shazam: Unpredictable menu options.
When you press the menu icon the result seems to randomly switch between displaying the full
menu where you can choose to open the song in Spotify, save it, or share it, and the Apple Music
only pop-up. Sometimes you can press it multiple times & get only one result or the other.
Shazam
| letsrollok | Jan 28, 2020
Yahoo Mail: adverts presented as unread emails.
Dark #UX pattern spotted on @yahoomail — ads are styled to look like unread emails, making it too
easy for users to accidentally click on the ad and drive revenue to Yahoo and their advertisers.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Yahoo
| Emilia_Totzeva | Jan 28, 2020
Elon Musk responds to author Nassim Nicholas Taleb regarding his Dark Pattern complaint.
@nntaleb Just saw this today. Tesla refunds in general should be easy to get electronically &
certainly through customer service. Will he addressed.
Tesla
| elonmusk | Jan 15, 2020
Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb is caught out by Dark Patterns in the Tesla app and is denied a refund.
Elon @elonmusk, your Customer Support at Tesla is even worse than I claimed last time. It is an insult
to your customers.
Tesla
| nntaleb | Jan 15, 2020
New Yorker: consent preferences.
On the @NewYorker’s site, there’s a cookie setting literally called “Sell My Personal Information”. If
you disable it, it will auto-enable itself when you use the CTA to close the window! Absolutely
egregious disregard for ethical UX.
The New Yorker
| _armannobari | Jan 11, 2020
Wish Shopping: unsubscribe.
I hate stuff like this, came across this one recently on @WishShopping. Also important to note, this
only, modal comes up after you submit a form of checkboxes, where the last box resubscribes you
to a weekly drip campaign
Wish Shopping
| IamTrevorMurphy | Dec 27, 2019
Outlook: consent preferences.
So, @outlook/@Microsoft wants me to manually un-check like 100 companies if I don’t want them
collecting my data… #privacy
Outlook
| AdrianSkar | Dec 04, 2019
Microsoft: consent preferences.
Very @darkpatterns example by @Microsoft? What are my options here? “Accept optional data…”
as opposed to “Yes send optional data…”. I wish not to send anything. Which option should I choose?
Microsoft
| BrtZndbrgn | Nov 30, 2019
Plusnet: Marketing opt-out.
Plusnet with their intentionally confusing language.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Plusnet
| Seriphe | Nov 24, 2019
LinkedIn: unsubscribe.
After hunting down the tiny link I was sure I had cancelled my @LinkedIn premium subscription last
month. Turns out they switch the primary and secondary button so at a glance you think you are
performing the opposite action
Linkedin
| occitanemoron | Nov 23, 2019
ICICI Bank: life cover upsell.
WTF @ICICIBank, why would I need life cover while transferring funds to a friend!
ICICI Bank
| mitul_45 | Nov 23, 2019
Yahoo: unsubscribe.
Trying to unsubscribe from @Yahoo/@verizonmedia
Yahoo
| MCSeb | Nov 22, 2019
Facebook hijacks your back button, generating 12 entries for each page you visit.
Facebook makes it hard for users to leave facebook via their browser’s back button.
Facebook
| xichael | Nov 22, 2019
Facebook App: fake message alert.
That Facebook and its #UX#darkpattern When you are on the web, it shows you a message that
does not exist to download the messaging app, Hook Model in action.
Facebook
| cchavezhello | Nov 16, 2019
Google: consent preferences.
Google hiding the ability to say no thanks only if you scroll down. Not immediately obvious that you
can
Google
| glen_george | Nov 09, 2019
ClickUp: user shaming.
A signup window for ClickUp says: ‘Save 26 days per year. We analyzed the time saved by over
4,000 teams after switching to ClickUp. That’s 624 hours back!’ Underneath, the button for not
signing up is labelled ‘No, I want to waste 26 days’
ClickUp
| jnnksbrt | Nov 07, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
RevolutApp: consent preferences.
Hey @RevolutApp. What’s with the confusing, blatant dark pattern messaging here when I go to
toggle targeted marketing? Why MUST you be so sneaky? Why? Why?
RevolutApp
| KimberlyMicado | Nov 06, 2019
SpotHero: confusing unsubscribe.
Check out this gem. Change in standard answer, followed by double negative content.
SpotHero
| TeacohTime | Nov 05, 2019
Fii Stilat: fake countdown timer.
Textbook example of @darkpatterns in Europe: @BogdanCovrig & I visited this webshop from three
different browsers & they seem to personalize their timers to the specific browser call. No
math.random(), but still curious. Days don’t change, just minutes & seconds.
Fii Stilat
| CatalinaGoanta | Nov 04, 2019
Amazon Music Unlimited: cancelling subscription.
Amazon makes you click Into “Advanced Controls”, move past a bunch of options of which none is
$0.00, and then search for a plaintext link just to cancel your subscription.
Amazon
| MichaelKolber | Nov 03, 2019
Apple IOS: nagging users to subscribe to Apple Pay.
iPhone users are nagged to sign up to Apple Pay
Apple
| BEERLEAGUERED | Oct 31, 2019
Disney Destinations: unsubscribe.
stop making people jump through the hoop! make these processes simple and straightforward!
Disney Destinations
| dishonestmktg | Oct 29, 2019
Apple IOS: nagging users to subscribe to Apple Pay.
When Apple makes me believe that the installation of iOS is not finished until I configure Apple Pay.
Apple
| SylvieAustrui | Oct 26, 2019
They Know What You Watched Last Night
“Many streaming customers are unaware that the sitcom titles they prefer, the ads they do not skip,
their email addresses and the serial numbers identifying the devices they use are being harvested
and distributed.”

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Amazon
Roku
| Tiffany Hsu | Oct 25, 2019
BecauseNightIsBetter.com: allow notifications.
One of the worst @darkpatterns I ever came across: Press allow notifications to verify that you are
not a robot. When you decline it even redirects you to a different subdomain and asks you again.
BecauseNightIsBetter.com
| etticat | Oct 19, 2019
alternate.de: consent preferences.
See this #darkpattern all the time in cookie banners: the primary action is not ‘confirm’, but ‘select +
confirm all’
Alternate.de
| obesechinese | Oct 19, 2019
EE: unclear services sign up.
One of the many reasons I’m leaving @EE — pulling @darkpatterns like this. Go to buy more data
(extortionately priced), choose “One-off” and a pop-up appears with “Monthly Recurring” as the
prominent, highlighted option. Now I have to waste my time working out how to cancel…
EE
| danchristians | Oct 17, 2019
Dark Pattern Games: resource for gamers wanting to avoid Dark Patterns.
Dark Pattern Games is a review site that analyses the Dark Patterns used by different games. It has a
voting system and is meticulously put together.
Dark Patterns Games
| Anon | Oct 17, 2019
The Turbotax Trap — How the Tax Prep Industry Makes You Pay
In this series of in-depth articles, Investigative journalist Justin Elliott looks into the various
manipulative and deceptive techniques that Intuit allegedly used in their Turbotax software.
Intuit
| Justin Elliott, Paul Kiel & Will Yong | Oct 17, 2019
Onetravel uses a random number generator to create a fake “X people are looking at this fight”
notification.
Ok this is really funny, check this out. I was in the process of booking a flight via @OneTravel. Trying
to make me book ASAP, they claimed: “38 people are looking at this flight”. Whoa
Onetravel
| Harpaz, Ophir | Oct 16, 2019
Gumtree: marketing preferences.
On log in, you either accept marketing emails or cancel which logs you out. No way to opt out here.
That’s not good UX @Gumtree #darkpattern

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Gumtree
| christiansandor | Oct 14, 2019
Citibank: upselling pop up.
This #darkpattern pops up from time to time in the @Citi @Citibank mobile app. There’s no way to
dismiss the initial pop up, and when you try to say No Thanks on the next screen, you must confirm
you’re not interested.
Citibank
| ryantaber88 | Oct 14, 2019
Smart TVs are data-collecting machines, new study shows
“Add smart TVs to the growing list of home appliances guilty of surveilling people’s movements. A
new study from Princeton University shows internet-connected TVs, which allow people to stream
Netflix and Hulu, are loaded with data-hungry trackers.”
Roku
Amazon
| Zoe Schiffer | Oct 11, 2019
LinkedIn: Sync contacts.
Some more #darkpatterns here, by LinkedIn. You can either sync, or postpone for later.
Linkedin
| pappasadrian | Oct 06, 2019
Unknown: cookie preferences.
Here’s a ridiculous example of a deceptive dark pattern. Looks like advertising and analytics cookies
are off by default, but the red button actually turns them on. You have to click «more options» to
keep it disabled.
Unknown
| airavn | Oct 02, 2019
Touchnote: misleading ‘best value’.
@Touchnote has this gem on their pricing comparison page. One option is marked as “best value”.
The selected item promises $19.80 of savings. But…they are all the same price?
Touchnote
| JC_UX | Sep 30, 2019
IKEA: self-service POS terminal.
Hello @IKEAUK, this is from your self-service POS terminal. I don’t want to enter my post code,
where am I supposed to press ‘No Thanks’ ?
Ikea
| djh | Sep 29, 2019
NDTV Food: user shaming.
You know what @NDTVFood, this doesn’t give the greatest impression of your site.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
NDTV Food
| pgl | Sep 28, 2019
Beyond Burger: allow notifications.
check out this cursed shit i found on this site. it tells you to allow notifications to verify if your a
human with a fake captcha. i only have seen the beyond burger site do this.
Beyond Burger
| AmiTheRobot | Sep 27, 2019
Eventbrite: marketing preferences.
in Eventbrite’s last step when you register for tickets. ‘Go To My Tickets’ not only signs you up for
email marketing but it’s already opt-in for you. Sneaky + interfering the interface.
Eventbrite
| AndreiStroescu1 | Sep 23, 2019
Buienradar: pop-up consent.
Example of @darkpatterns. The page I wanted to view is hidden by an overlay asking permission to
show a popup. I don’t want that, but my only options are ‘yes’ and ‘not now, maybe later’. Where is
the ‘no’, @buienradar?
Buienradar
| BrtZndbrgn | Sep 10, 2019
Quora: forced App sign up.
Shame on @Quora for implementing a dark pattern that forces me to download their app without an
option to exit this horrible popup
Quora
| koolamusic | Sep 10, 2019
Météo-France: settings preferences.
Nice @darkpatterns here @meteofrance: “j’accepte” doesn’t save the current settings, it turns
everything on and exits. To keep the selected settings you have to chose “je valide mes choix”
Météo-France
| EvpokPadding | Sep 08, 2019
Grammarly: hidden cancel subscription button.
Hey @Grammarly, kinda shitty UX trying to hide the button to cancel my subscription.
Grammarly
| AndreasNorman | Sep 03, 2019
Swiss Airlines: cookie settings.
What a mischievous technique to trick people into giving in all the data by accidentally clicking the
wrong click of action.
Swiss Airlines
| smashingmag | Aug 30, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Yahoo: unsubscribe.
Trying to unsubscribe, so which option is colored, buttonized, front and center? Cancel, of course.
Yahoo
| BrianHershey | Aug 30, 2019
Unknown: marketing preferences.
@darkpatterns on this danish Website. It says: You will also recieve our newsletter. Easy to
unsubscribe. It has a checkbox that says: Okay, i understand. And if not checked, a warning appears
forcing you to check it. Bad impression in the first 2 minutes.
Unknown
| VilladsClaes | Aug 28, 2019
LinkedIn: unsubscribe.
Trying to cancel my @LinkedIn premium… that is dark pattern isn’t it?
Linkedin
| mutebg | Aug 21, 2019
Vueling Airlines: sneaking services to customers as ‘Priority Boarding’.
The check-in process in @vueling hiding so many @darkpatterns to fool the passengers taking
services we don’t want as ‘prioritary boarding
Vueling Airlines
| NachoOliveras | Aug 19, 2019
Coursera: marketing preferences.
Yet another example of @darkpatterns, this time found on @coursera. You cannot just decline, it’s
“now” or “later”…
Coursera
| jacek_bilski | Aug 19, 2019
CBS: You are about to cancel your subscription. Still want to cancel after us asking 4 times?
CBS makes it exceptionally difficult for users to cancel their premium subscription.
CBS
| LifeLegacy | Aug 18, 2019
Contacts+: Call spam block.
Hey @contactsplus you’re joining the @darkpatterns army!
Contacts+
| _gallina_ | Aug 17, 2019
Google News: ad-blockers & privacy tools.
Today @googlenews joined the ranks of “Sites that don’t want you to use ad-blockers/privacy tools
& just tell you that you’re offline if you do” (along with @TheAtlantic) I’m fine with “Turn off your ad-
blocker to use this site,” less so with lying.

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Google
The Atlantic
| jessamyn | Aug 16, 2019
TripAdvisor: deleting account.
Deleting your TripAdvisor account? It’s more complex than destroying a ring Did you notice that
“back” button that looks like a submit one? Well it took me 3 times to realize I was always going
backwards instead of deleting my account
TripAdvisor
| Mamboleoo | Aug 14, 2019
Gitlab: marketing preferences.
This sadly looks like a @darkpatterns from @gitlab 2019 Global Developer Report: DevSecOps
Gitlab
| hpizaia | Aug 05, 2019
UserTesting: unclear pricing information.
@usertesting the sadly ironic sales experience for visitors on your site is disappointing. No prices +
minimal info on the pricing page = informed decision? Then chatbot that asks an unanswerable
question & forces me to give email address/name before asking more.
UserTesting
| ycamjak | Aug 05, 2019
Shining a Light on Dark Patterns
“This article provides the first public evidence of the power of dark patterns. It discusses the results
of the authors’ large-scale experiment in which a representative sample of American consumers
were randomly assigned to a control group, a group that was exposed to mild dark patterns, or a
group that was exposed to aggressive dark patterns. All groups were told they had been
automatically enrolled in an identity theft protection plan, and the experimental manipulation varied
what acts were necessary for consumers to decline the plan. Users in the mild dark pattern condition
were more than twice as likely to remain enrolled as those assigned to the control group, and users
in the aggressive dark pattern condition were almost four times as likely to remain enrolled in the
program.”
Sony
ticketmaster
| Luguri, Jamie; Strahilevitz, Lior | Aug 05, 2019
YouTube Premium: confusing subscribe pop-up.
Intentionally confusing buttons from “don’t be evil” @google @YouTube here.
Google
| pauledevans | Jul 30, 2019
KingoWhatsapp: Consent preferences.
“Do you want it or you want it? The choice is yours.” What kind of UX #darkPattern sorcery is this
lol…

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
KingoWhatsapp
| MaticJ | Jul 27, 2019
Quora: forced app download.
@Quora, please let me know when you have fixed this very dark example of @darkpatterns. I do not
have the app and do not wish to download it. You leave me no other choice than leaving Quora. If
that’s what you want, so be it.
Quora
| BrtZndbrgn | Jul 26, 2019
Admiral: renewal and cancellation of insurance.
Really poor @darkpatterns from @AdmiralUK. Sign up for car insurance online, manage account
online, get email notification of auto-renewal (which I didn’t explicitly sign up for) for a 38% increase
in cost. No option to cancel auto-renewal online. Shameful and exploitative.
Admiral
| thelonelyrobot | Jul 24, 2019
Listonic: ‘add item’ button design also used in site’s advertisements.
Another #DarkPattern from @listonic (a grocery list app). They use a blue button to add an item to
your grocery list — but that button disappears when you scroll down. Their ad space, however, has a
similar blue button plastered to it that’s always visible.
Listonic
| DougCollinsUX | Jul 21, 2019
Jake Sweeney car dealership: marketing unsubscribe.
Haven’t seen this dark pattern before… Hit unsubscribe from an email, then like most people I almost
skipped the “why?” part and almost got resubscribed. Car dealerships are still generally bad
marketers.
jakesweeney.com
| cuhpajo | Jul 19, 2019
National Express: cash back offer used to sneak sale of paid-for subscription.
Oof, a masterful dark pattern from @nationalexpress @darkpatterns
National Express
| fawkesley | Jul 17, 2019
Crazy egg: pop-ups.
@crazyegg You know what users LOVE when they’re reading articles? Takeover popups that
interrupt them and can’t be dismissed. This is some @darkpatterns shenanigans right here.
Crazy Egg
| fienen | Jul 16, 2019
Netflix: autoplay for kids’ TV shows.
Frustrating: Can’t turn off @Netflix autoplaying next episode kids’ videos directly on smart TV (must

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
use web interface) Bat-Sh*t Infuriating: @Netflix apparently CAN’T disable autoplay for KIDS profiles
(only adult ones)? Shame on you.
Netflix
| lukestein | Jul 13, 2019
ICO: cookie preferences.
I have no idea if analytics cookies are turned on or off. This obviously is not what ‘good’ looks like.
ICO
| tbroyer | Jul 04, 2019
Daily Express: cookie preferences.
OK, so let’s “continue to partners” (there isn’t another option anyway). So this screen is now about
advertising and tracking. There are 252 partners listed here, with 245 pre-selected. That is a lot of
companies who want to know about you. Note the @darkpatterns usage of green.
Daily Express
| drogersuk | Jul 03, 2019
Lionsgate: marketing opt-in.
Tried to redeem a @lionsgate digital movie download code, was forced into accepting spam
marketing emails if I wanted to continue.
Lionsgate
| gfitzp | Jun 30, 2019
Facebook’s “friend request” list becomes an “invite friends” list as you scroll down, making it easy to
mistakenly invite friends.
“Facebook users are prompt with a list of friend requests. They start tapping the ‘Confirm’ buttons,
repeatedly, one after the other. At some point, the list starts showing suggestions instead of
requests, but since the UI is almost identical, users easily miss this important difference, resulting in
some unwanted friend requests.”
Facebook
| GilBouhnick | Jun 26, 2019
How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You May Not Want
“‘Alexandra from Anaheim just saved $222 on her order’ says one message next to an image of a
bright, multicolored dress. […] But “Alexandra from Anaheim” did not buy the dress. She does not
exist.”
New Balance
| Jennifer Valentino-DeVries | Jun 24, 2019
MyFitnessPal: consent preferences.
I tried ticking and unticking the boxes — there’s no way to permanently say no to both in
@MyFitnessPal.
MyFitnessPal
| liamdaws | Jun 23, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Smule: sign out of app.
No way to sign out on @smule, an app with millions of downloads. To delete your account, you need
to submit a request through their FAQ on their website and fill a super long form. I hate it when apps
do this.
Smule
| anthilemoon | Jun 19, 2019
Google Backup and Sync: “weasel wording” from the app preferences.
A perfect example of “weasel wording” from the Google Backup and Sync app preferences.
Google
| harrybr | Jun 14, 2019
Otto.de: Newsletter opt-in required to subscribe.
This is once a #darkpattern : I have to order the newsletter in order to be able to register with
#otto_de
Otto.de
| holger1411 | Jun 12, 2019
Which button should the user push to cancel their membership? “Continue” or “Cancel”?
@PressedJuicery Trying to unsubscribe from membership, and this what I get?! If I want to cancel,
what button do I push?- You have to work at it to be this bad. #darkpatterns
Pressed Juicery
| kmcurk | Jun 09, 2019
Quora: pop-ups.
There’s a dark pattern when you’re browsing @Quora on mobile. You can read an article for a while,
but then this pop up shows up. There’s no way to exit out of the pop up without choosing one of
these options and they both link to the App Store.
Quora
| JardenaGJ | Jun 02, 2019
Ipsy: cancellation.
Guess I didn’t cancel my @ipsy membership last month. I hope the $10 was worth it. I was planning
to take a break for the summer, now I’ll never subscribe to ipsy again.
Ipsy
| JessicaDunbar | Jun 02, 2019
JetBlue: seat selection implies necessary upgrade.
This is a BS dark pattern from @JetBlue. They give the the cheap price of the flight, you enter all your
info, then when it comes time to pick a seat, they make it seem like you need to upgrade to make
sure you have a seat.
JetBlue
| drbarnard | May 25, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Airbnb: Unclear total price.
Great @darkpatterns from @Airbnb — The price first displayed is less than half of the actual total.
The filter doesn’t use the total, so it’s useless. The lack of friction helps push people through w/o
noticing. Still used AirBnb, but no longer my 1st choice.
airbnb
| BBBP14 | May 21, 2019
Lastminute.com — active button designed to look inactive.
Discovered such a shitty dark pattern on @lastminute_com — radio button looks like it’s inactive but
in fact you can still press on it. Thumbs down not good, LastMinute.
LastMinute.com
| gn0me | May 16, 2019
Le Monde: cancel online subscription.
So apparently, to stop my (online) subscription @lemondefr, I gotta print a paper, fill my data, then
send it like a postcard (and pay in the process). Nice
LeMonde.fr
| nielswd | May 10, 2019
Yahoo: consent.
https://consent.yahoo.com/consent shame on you; on big easy button to accept or masses of well
buried individual links to reject?
Yahoo
| DHMeagher | May 09, 2019
United: data collection and sharing.
@united doesn’t allow you to do web check in unless you download an app and scan your passport.
The app collects data it is then able to sell to 3rd parties for their own marketing purposes. Everyone
seems eager to get a slice of us…
United Airlines
| juanof9 | May 08, 2019
Medium: Alt text.
Holy crap, I had no idea @medium has known about this for years and still not fixed it. So they don’t
care about blind people?
Medium
| joelanman | May 06, 2019
Medium: Misleading sign up.
Medium’s signup process is a #darkpattern. It may seem like the only way to create an account is
using Facebook/Google, but you can still use email. 1) Go to the “Sign in” page, 2) Click on “Sign in
with email”, 3) Enter your email, 4) Medium emails you an account creation link.
Medium
| aruneshmathur | May 03, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Do not uncheck this box if you wish to be contacted via email…
Square Enix uses trick wording so that some users will unintentionally opt in to marketing
communications.
Square Enix
| redwall_hp | May 03, 2019
Unknown: consent.
I don’t want to turn into a data bore, but I’m really beginning to notice what I’ll call ‘consent
architecture’. A single click of a massive button to let all the cookies do all the tracking. Or manually
unclicking every button, one by one Practical and possible are v. Different
Unknown
| carljackmiller | May 02, 2019
When manipulation is the digital business model
Ever looked for an online cancel button and struggled to find it? ‘Dark patterns’ may be to blame
(Opinion feature in FT Magazine)
Google
| Madhumita Murgia | May 01, 2019
Citizen app: location access.
@CitizenApp, via a server enabled “experiment”, now ̶a̶s̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ requiring “Always allow” location
access. Switching to “When is use” results in not being able to use the app at all
Citizen app
| capnbrbsa | Apr 30, 2019
Amazon: Pantry & free shipping offer.
me: let me quickly order the #toddler some lotion @amazon: cool, do this pantry thing for
#freeshipping me: k sure, let’s get a bunch amazon: nah we Red heart #ux @darkpatterns so you
need to subscribe
Amazon
| dejmejia | Apr 27, 2019
Joe Biden: Unsubscribe.
Say it ain’t so, Joe. First required field and submit button is to remain in the list. Unsubscribe isn’t
prepopulated with my email address? That’s some #darkpatterns black magic. @darkpatterns
JoeBiden.com
| MitchMirsky | Apr 26, 2019
Microsoft: Auto-select of promotional emails.
@Microsoft please don’t auto-select “contact me with promotional offers” after I deselected it and
then navigated to select my region. It’s unbecoming of what is otherwise a very good company.
Microsoft
| AdamSmithKipnis | Apr 25, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Amazon Prime: cancel subscription.
Cancelling Amazon Prime is a simple three step shaming process. All you have to do is scream “I
don’t want my benefits” in to a mirror, without crying. Please respect my privacy through this
difficult time
Amazon
| martynreding | Apr 24, 2019
Lucidchart: cancel subscription.
Hey @lucidchart, are you for real? You seriously want to burn those bridges down with those
checkmarks, don’t you
Lucidchart
| lambdadmitry | Apr 23, 2019
GanttPRO: Unsubscribe.
Try and figure out how to cancel your subscription for @GanttPROcom. Yep it’s the little “link” word
that has a font-size of 11px and in no way looks like a link. Also, it’s mentioned nowhere in their Help
Center (which conveniently has no search).
GanttPRO
| atokmakchiev | Apr 17, 2019
Intuit: Email preferences.
This is @Intuit mailing mngmt. How many dark patterns can you spot? Intentional hiding of
“unsubscribe”. Double negatives. Check to NOT receive emails but sometimes you actually sign up.
And Zuckering — lets you work hard to rid of all their crap.
Intuit
| zmetak | Apr 16, 2019
SumAll: Deactiviation.
Finally, I fell in the @darkpatterns by @Sumall Twitter automation tool. Their deactivate account
button is gray but the cancellation button (NO, GO BACK.) is green.
SumAll
| Gtarafdarr | Apr 12, 2019
Yelp: updated Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Oh hey @Yelp @darkpatterns: “We’ve updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy” Click ’OK’ -
> banner disappears New policy lets friends ‘check you in’, shares city w/ co’s, adds arbitration
clause in ToS PP diff: https://diffchecker.com/IyAWdaAb ToS diff:
https://diffchecker.com/Axd8qn4W
Yelp
| ashk4n | Apr 10, 2019
Federal Trade Commission v. Office Depot, Complaint for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable
Relief, Case №9–19-cv-80431 (S.D. Fla. Mar. 27, 2019),
“Office Depot and […] Support.com, were [accused of] falsely informing consumers that their

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
computers were infected with malware and then selling them various fixes for non-existent
problems.” (Summary from Luguri & Strahilevitz, 2019)
Office Depot
Support.com
| Mar 27, 2019
Boursorama: Can’t close bank insurance pop-up.
Omg, You kidding @boursorama? When I open a new bank account I find this Pop-up “Do you want
to subscribe to our bank insurance?” Wait… where is the cross to close the pop-up? What are the
insurance conditions? Seriously it’s hidden and only visible in hover…
Boursorama
| DoDontUX | Mar 12, 2019
Colorfy: Unsubscribe.
So angry My mum was wondering where all her iTunes credit was going. I checked her subscriptions
“But I deleted that app!” she said. She had no idea this was happening. For months. And just kept
putting more money in She bought it because her grandson loves colouring
Colorfy
| twolivesleft | Mar 11, 2019
Unknown: ‘Add to cart to see price’.
Site makes customer add item to shopping cart in order to see the price
Unknown
| LeslieRaeMag | Mar 08, 2019
Three: Marketing opt-out.
You can’t opt out of this spam from @ThreeUKSupport without signing up to My3.
Three (phone network)
| AmThatKindaDude | Mar 03, 2019
Go Fund Me: sign in.
@gofundme this is very sad… as you can imagine following
https://twitter.com/utopiah/status/1099075503955288064 I do NOT want to use not create a new
account. Yet this makes it seem like its mandatory. Should @darkpatterns also pitch in?
GoFundMe
| utopiah | Mar 01, 2019
MyFax: Cancel subscription.
When in doubt, make a tool that doesn’t work (didn’t send any of my faxes) and have it be as difficult
as possible to cancel a free trial @darkpatterns #darkpatterns There isn’t even a numbered option to
cancel on the phone system, 15 minutes on hold… awesome.
MyFax
| jamesphig | Feb 27, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Facebook: misleading notifications when not signed in.
Facebook’s #darkpatterns at work again. I don’t have any notifications, yet it keeps showing that I
have when I am not logged in.
Facebook
| shubhamjainco | Feb 25, 2019
Delta: Mailing list unsubscribe.
~a double whammy~ 1) @darkpatterns: trying to unsubscribe from @Delta, are the “program
updates” REALLY that important? or you just don’t want me to unsub 2) #UX: THESE ARE
CHECKBOXES BUT YOU CAN ONLY CHECK ONE THIS IS WHAT RADIO BUTTONS ARE FOR
Delta Airlines
| _weimf | Feb 22, 2019
XING News: Unsubscribe.
No “unsubscribe all”? Really @XINGNews?
XING News
| philbergdorf | Feb 22, 2019
CIBC: Forced ads and unclear buttons.
Horrible experience opening the @cibc iPhone app — multiple @darkpatterns. A forced ad you have
to scroll 3 pages down to get past. Then, “No Thanks” is not styled like a button. Makes you double-
confirm with reverse-styled buttons. “Go to my accounts” is why I opened the app!
CIBC
| deviantintegral | Feb 16, 2019
Inverse.com: Declining newsletter sign-up.
Inverse.com: You have to scroll down from the full screen pop up to decline
Inverse.com
| liquidbrains | Feb 15, 2019
Proflowers puts your savings on bottom to make it look like your actual price. When your order price
is actually above it.
To add to this. The 2 additional fees you see at the bottom weren’t shown until after filling out and
customizing your order. At the beginning, it said I’d only be paying for shipping.
Proflowers
| GeeShepherd | Feb 12, 2019
Clothing retailer Next requires users to tick some checkboxes and untick others in order to opt out
from marketing emails.
Next requires users to tick a series of four checkboxes to opt out of marketing communications, but
then requires users to leave the fifth checkbox unticked to opt out. If they are not paying close
attention, they will opt in by mistake.
Next
| theya222 | Feb 07, 2019

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Imperial War Museum Duxford: Ticket prices.
Imperial War Museum Duxford hides by default the actual price of their tickets in favour of one
including a ‘voluntary donation’
Imperial War Museum Duxford
| Gibfender | Feb 06, 2019
24PetWatch: Unsubscribe.
Not very happy with @24petwatch. They offer a 30 day trial of their pet insurance policy, but their
website has no way to canel the trial. NOT cool
24PetWatch
| JohnJMills | Feb 05, 2019
Yahoo uses confusing design to users into staying subscribed to their mailing lists.
Yahoo uses trick wording. The button labelled “No, cancel” actually means “cancel the cancellation”
and causes the user to stay subscribed.
Yahoo
| th3userscene | Feb 05, 2019
Ultimate Guitar: unable to decline permissions.
Wow @ultimateguitar, I just plugged my earphones in, and your app, which wasn’t even in the
foreground, prompted me to give access to my earbuds microphone. Clicking cancel just
respawned the dialog. Had no choice but to accept!
UltimateGuitar
| xgouchet | Feb 04, 2019
Unknown: Price change during license subscription process.
Impressed with this bug! #DarkUX This is a license purchase dialog for a software. Pay close
attention to the UX: User looks at the price £2.50. Goes to Lifetime License. New price is £29.99.
Animation brings out an input. User attention shifts to completing the transaction.
Unknown
| kuizinas | Jan 31, 2019
Snapchat: misleading marketing sign up.
#darkpattern from @Snapchat. This form makes it seem like you need to add your email address to
be able to complete the form. You don’t.
Snapchat
| aro_007 | Jan 31, 2019
Soundguys.com: Headphones are collecting too much personal data
“I can’t think of a single reason why a pair of workout earbuds need access to someone’s menstrual
history. We should just call it what it is because, at that point, it doesn’t feel like a transaction
anymore. It’s just spying.”
Soul Run Free Pro
Beflex Inc

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Bose
| Adam Molina | Jan 17, 2019
FlyBys: Marketing preferences.
Probably easier to just delete the email than to have to select every single checkbox to unsubscribe
hey @flybuys? Or maybe that’s the point…
FlyBys
| NickJacobAU | Jan 09, 2019
Confirmshaming.
Tumblr account dedicated to examples of confirmshaming.
Cosmopolitan magazine
| Anon | Jan 01, 2019
CodePen: Unsubscribe from mailing list.
CodePen circumventing legal “Unsubscribe from mail list” requirements by adding you to 5 separate
mail lists.
CodePen
| birkir | Dec 21, 2018
Epic Games Store added the word “not” to the standard blurb about receiving emails.
Epic requires users to tick a box to opt out of emails. if the user does not notice this UI control, they
will be automatically opted into emails.
EPIC Games
| craftkiller | Dec 15, 2018
Reddit: Mobile site UI.
Reddit’s mobile site UI has become even more evil. I don’t have the app installed, yet it mimics the
Android “Open in X or Y” prompt to try and trick you into installing it. Shame.
Reddit
| StopEnjoyingThings | Nov 29, 2018
Every Step You Take
Report by the Norwegian Consumer Council showing how Google uses dark patterns to manipulate
users into enabling location tracking. The NCC filed a GDPR complaint against Google based on the
report.
Google
| Norwegian Consumer Council | Nov 27, 2018
Brilliant.org: Unsubscribe.
Tried cancelling my subscription today…
Brilliant.org
| harksha | Nov 14, 2018

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Texas voting machines: Switching votes
“When Texas’ early voting process started, some people finished filling out their ballot only to see
that their choices had been changed — either switched from one party to another, or erased
completely. This seemed like a bug at best, or deliberate election tampering at worst.”
Texas voting machines
| Adi Robertson | Oct 30, 2018
Reddit uses annoying overlay on website to coerce app downloads.
Reddit makes it’s website difficult to use, in an effort to drive users to use their native mobile apps.
Reddit
| TableSurface | Oct 05, 2018
Time Warner Cable: Manipulative Dropdown List.
Dropdown list is written so that typing “1” enters in “10”, not “1”.
Time Warner Cable
| Gray et al. | Oct 01, 2018
Facebook’s data deletion dark pattern.
Facebook switches the style of the “confirm” and “cancel” buttons, which will frequently cause users
to mistakenly click the wrong button.
Facebook
| th3userscene | Sep 16, 2018
Fake Captcha.
The website asks the user to either wait 20 seconds or click a Google+ “+1” button to prove that they
are human. Most users will not want to wait 20 seconds to access the site, so they may click the “+1”
for a reason they would normally not.
GunshotDigital.com
| Gray et al. | Sep 12, 2018
StudentLifeNetwork: marketing sign up.
The button is greyed out but works. To trick you into signing up for spam.
StudentLifeNetwork
| KlumsyGamer | Sep 10, 2018
Wikipedia: Donation drive.
There’s no clear option to dismiss the donation screen, only “donate” and “donate later” instead of
“yes” and “no”. Clicking on “donate later” prompts you to give your email address instead of
dismissing the screen.
Wikipedia
| SkyMuffin | Aug 29, 2018
F.T.C. v. Triangle Media Corp., 2018 WL 4051701, Case №18cv1388-MMA (NLS) (S.D. Cal. Aug. 24,
2018).

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
The operators of a worldwide negative option scam have agreed to settle FTC charges that they
deceptively advertised “risk-free” trial offers for only the cost of shipping and handling, but then
charged consumers full price for the trial product and enrolled them in expensive, ongoing
continuity plans without their knowledge or consent.
Triangle Media Corporation
| Aug 24, 2018
AirTable: hidden charges for sharing.
When a subscriber shares a link to an Airtable document, they are charged a year’s subscription fee
for each person a document is shared with. The charges are incurred without any notification or
warning.
Airtable
| harrybr | Aug 16, 2018
F.T.C. v. AMG Capital Management LLC. 910 F.3d 417 (9th Cir. 2018).
A recent (2018) case involving Dark Patterns. The dispute involved the F.T.C.’s enforcement action
against a payday lender that was providing information to lure customers. (Also see Luguri &
Strahilevitz, 2019)
AMG Capital Management
500FastCash
| Aug 15, 2018
Ubisoft: disabling third party information sharing.
Ubisoft requires your personal information to disable third party information sharing on a preexisting
account, despite them being in distinct forms.
Ubisoft
| Maggoats | Aug 01, 2018
Facebook and Google accused of using ‘dark patterns’ to mislead users into sharing personal data
News article responding to the Norwegian Consumer Council’s “Deceived by Design” report.
Facebook
Google
| Binder, Matt | Jun 28, 2018
Deceived By Design
A fantastic report by the Norwegian Consumer Council that explains how tech companies use dark
patterns to discourage us from exercising our rights to privacy. Facebook, Google and Windows 10
are named and shamed.
Facebook
Google
Microsoft
| Author unknown | Jun 27, 2018

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Taringa: Delete account.
Taringa hides the delete account button behind a padlock icon. I’m not sure if that’s a dark pattern or
not.
Taringa
| CyanoTex | Jun 26, 2018
Forbes: marketing cookies.
Opting out of Forbes ad cookies makes you wait for a fake progress bar to finish, and takes you back
to repeat the process.
Forbes
| EdgeLordPussySlayer | Jun 17, 2018
Virgin Media sign up: check the “Keeping in touch” checkbox to not keep in touch.
Virgin Media uses trick wording to obtain marketing opt-in permission.
Virgin
| db0798 | Apr 21, 2018
Instacart phishes for your contacts through email address validation.
Instacart tricks users into sharing their entire address book by emphasising the benign call to action
“verify your email address” and by de-emphasising the text stating “we’ll also import your
contacts…”
Instacart
| craftkiller | Apr 16, 2018
Google Nexus 5: Login with Gmail.
You can set up the phone without a google account connected, but it doesn’t show that as an option
until you fail to log in 3 times.
Google
| NoPunkProphet | Apr 09, 2018
TrustArc appears to add a deliberate delay in their cookie preference manager.
@TrustArc Why does your EUPreferenceManger consistenly take exactly 30 seconds to save my opt
out cookie preferences? What is it doing?
TrustArc
| troyhunt | Mar 06, 2018
Richard Thaler, Nobel Prize-winning economist, says Wells Fargo is ‘slimy’.
“Whenever anyone asks me to sign a copy of the book ‘Nudge’ I sign it ‘nudge for good’ which is a
plea, not an expectation, because it is possible for actors in both the public and private sector to
nudge for evil,” Thaler told MarketWatch.
Wells Fargo
| Leslie Albrecht | Feb 16, 2018

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Sleep Cycle: Misleading Free Trial.
A large green button says “Start Free Trial”, but in smaller writing below it says every subsequent
year is $10.99. The skip button is also small and at the bottom.
Sleep Cycle
| Gray et al. | Jan 22, 2018
How Booking.com manipulates you.
Many websites and applications these days are designed to trick you into doing things that their
creators want… But one of the most manipulative websites I’ve ever come across is Booking.com,
the large hotel search & booking service.
Booking.com
| Roman Cheplyaka | Sep 17, 2017
Spirit Airlines: Deceptive Options during Booking Process.
Option 1: Pay $59.95 + $53.99 + flight price to purchase flight, 1 year membership in $9 fare club, and
the various add-ons for this flight Option 2: Pay $63.99 + flight price to purchase flight Tiny unboxed
option at bottom: Ignore all of the add-ons and purchase flight only
Spirit Airlines
| u/jnachod | Aug 29, 2017
Pastebin.com: Unsubscribe.
Want to unsubscribe? Hope you have good vision!
Pastebin.com
| u/instrun3 | Aug 02, 2017
Amazon: Defaults to Subscription.
Defaults to subcription instead of one-time purchase
Amazon
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
CourseHero: Pay or Contribute.
Unlock limited content by submitting 10 documents or by paying
CourseHero
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Google: Ads Disguised as Search Results.
The first four results of a google search for “flowers” are ads disguised as search results. They have
a small green tag that identifies them as ads, but many users will not notice this and click on the ads
anyways.
Google
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Heroes and Generals: In App Purchases.
The game uses a purchasable in-game currency to blur users’ recognition of the value they’re
transferring.
Heroes and Generals Games
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Linkis: Preselects Twitter Follow.
The site opens this pop-up, ironically on an article about Dark Patterns. The big blue button allows
the user to connect their twitter account, but the option the follow the site’s twitter is already
checked.
Linkis
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Ryanair: Travel Insurance.
Ryanair hides the opt-out for travel insurance inside a drop-down list of countries to choose
insurance for. Because there is no explicit “Do not ensure me” option, customers may pay for travel
insurance they would not have if given the option.
Ryanair
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Pain in the English: Emotional Manipulation.
The website prompts the user to have it proofread their document, and shames them if they select
no
painintheenglish.com
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Small Worlds: Misleading Unsubscribe.
The big green button does NOT, in fact, unsubscribe you from emails, the link for that is further
down.
Small Worlds Game
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Govia Thameslink Railway: Hard to Find Unsubscribe.
Unsubscribe link is the same font and colour as the rest of the text, all of which is low-profile, low-
contrast text to appear as unimportant on the bottom of the email.
Govia Thameslink
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Trump Headquarters: Emotional Manipulation.
Trump Headquarters sent out this email with a biased “poll” shaming users into selecting the first
option. Selecting the first option takes the user to a page asking for money. If you select the second
option, it takes the user to a page asking if they stand with Trump.
Trump
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017

Vivek Chan | +91-8687-777-786
Casino.org: Fake Counter.
The site prominently displays a ticking counter of visitors’ winnings since 1995, but viewing the site
through a foreign proxy reveals that the number isn’t exchange-rate accurate, just arbitrarily set
somewhere in the 33,000,000.00+ range, regardless of currency or region.
Casino.org
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Spotify: Difficult to Cancel Subscription.
User has to select “cancel” four times to cancel
Spotify
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Instagram: No Option for “No”.
The user is pressured to turn on notifications, and there is only the option for “not now” and “ok”. If
the user does not want to turn on notifications, there is not option for that, and the app will continue
to bother them about it.
Instagram
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Bovada: Bonus Winnings.
This online gambling site offers users generous ‘bonuses’ which are essentially free money for the
express use of gambling on the site. It is not clear that the bonuses & any winnings can’t be
withdrawn until a certain number of bets have been made on specific areas of the site.
Bovada
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Washington Post: Confusing Checkbox When Unsubscribing.
The Washington Post has a confusing checkbox when unsubscribing that makes it unclear whether
or not the user is unsubscribing from a service.
WashingtonPost.com
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Thomas Cook: Hidden Unsubscribe.
Unsubscribe link is buried in a mass of fine print and is difficult to find.
Thomas Cook
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017
Yelp: Disguised Ads.
Yelp disguises ads to look similar to customer reviews, and puts them in the same area as reviews
are posted.
Yelp
| Gray et al. | Aug 01, 2017

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