Types of Dark Patterns: The Thirteen Specified Practices with Examples

Annexure 1 of the 2023 Guidelines names thirteen dark patterns, each defined and illustrated, and together they are a field guide to the manipulative screen. This note takes them one by one, what each pattern is, how it works on the user, and its everyday examples, remembering throughout that the list is illustrative: the Guidelines' definition catches any design that subverts consumer autonomy, named or not.

1. The Pressure Patterns

1. False urgency: falsely stating or implying a sense of urgency or scarcity to pressure an immediate purchase: countdown timers untethered to any real deadline, 'only 2 rooms left' when inventory is ample, 'ten people are looking at this right now' generated at random. The decision is extracted before deliberation can happen.
2. Confirm shaming: using phrase, video, audio or any other means to create fear, shame, ridicule or guilt in the user's mind so as to nudge him into the platform's preferred choice: the refusal button reading 'No, I don't care about my family's safety', the opt-out that announces 'I prefer paying full price'. The user's self-image is recruited against his preference.
3. Nagging: a barrage of requests, information, options or interruptions unrelated to the intended purchase, which disrupts the transaction until the user relents: the notification permission demanded at every visit, the repeated upgrade prompt, the pop-ups that make the free path exhausting.

2. The Money Patterns

1. Basket sneaking: inclusion of additional items, services, donations or charges at checkout without the user's consent, so the amount payable exceeds the amount for what the user actually chose: the travel insurance pre-added to the fare, the 'tip' or charity slipped into the bill, the fast-delivery fee defaulted on.
2. Drip pricing: the price revealed in instalments: elements of the price not disclosed upfront, charges surreptitiously revealed within the user experience, or a product advertised as free which in truth requires in-app purchases to use: the convenience fee at the last screen, the handling charge after card entry, the 'free' game unplayable without payment.
3. Subscription trap: making cancellation impossible, complex or hidden, auto-renewal without clear consent, demanding payment details or authorisation for a free subscription, or burying the exit in ambiguous instructions: the one-click trial whose cancellation needs a phone call in office hours, the renewal charged silently after the forgotten trial.
4. SaaS billing: in recurring-subscription settings, generating and exploiting positive acquisition loops to draw money from the user as surreptitiously as possible: silent conversion of trials, unnoticed plan upgrades, charges continuing after apparent cancellation, the billing design built on not being noticed.

3. The Deception Patterns

1. Bait and switch: advertising a particular outcome on the user's action and serving a different one: the advertised fare that 'expires' at click, the product swapped for a costlier variant at checkout, the button that promises one thing and does another, the interface form of the classic bait.
2. Interface interference: a design element that manipulates the user interface, highlighting what the platform prefers and obscuring or camouflaging what the consumer needs: the glowing 'accept all' beside the grey 'manage options', the close button designed to be missed, the pre-selected dearer plan, the cheaper choice in fine print.
3. Trick question: deliberately confusing or vague language, double negatives and ambiguous toggles, that misguides or misdirects the user: 'Uncheck this box if you do not wish not to receive offers', the consent question whose yes means no.
4. Disguised advertisement: an advertisement masquerading as other content, user-generated posts, news articles, editorial, search results, so the selling message borrows the credibility of the form it imitates; the undisclosed influencer promotion falls here, read with the 2022 Guidelines' disclosure duties.
5. Forced action: forcing the user into an action he did not seek, buying additional goods, subscribing to a service, or sharing personal information, as the condition of completing the purchase he actually intended: the account and data demanded for a simple checkout, the app download compelled for a feature the website could serve.
6. Rogue malwares: using ransomware or scareware tactics to mislead the user into believing a problem exists and paying for its cure: the fake virus alert, the counterfeit system warning selling a 'cleaner', the pirated-content site that extracts payment through fear.

4. Using the Catalogue

• One flow, several patterns: real interfaces stack them, the false-urgency banner above a drip-priced fare, ending in a subscription trap; each pattern is separately identifiable and separately actionable.
• Mapping to the wrongs: the pressure and deception patterns ordinarily amount to misleading advertisements or unfair trade practices; the money patterns are also consent wrongs under the E-Commerce Rules' affirmative-consent rule; forced action trenches on the unfair-practice clause against compelled disclosure of personal information.
• Evidence: the pattern lives on the screen, so the proof is the screen: screenshots and recordings of the flow, the stock or timer claim against reality, the price at first display against the price at payment.
• The open end: the annexure illustrates; the definition governs, a manipulation with no listed name (scarcity by design, ghost discounts, obstruction of complaint flows) is tested directly against autonomy-subversion.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

• The 2023 Guidelines (Topic 79): the instrument behind the catalogue
• Dark patterns in e-commerce (Topic 81): the patterns at platform scale
• Bait advertisements (Topic 73): the content-side twin of bait and switch
• Unfair trade practice (Topic 16): the mapping's destination