The holiday shopping season is officially in full gear. Many shoppers took advantage of online bargains and deep discounts over the Thanksgiving holiday during Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
As millions of consumers continue to search for great deals, however, they need to watch out for misleading tactics used by digital retailers. E-commerce websites use a series of “dark patterns” that could cause shoppers to spend more and make decisions that are not to their benefit.
“Dark patterns are tactics a user interface design uses to lead a user to make a decision that they may not have made if they were otherwise fully informed," said Marshini Chetty, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Chicago. “Any time there is a user interface, it can try to mislead you to some gain for the service provider.”
Stealthy “dark pattern” ploys include fake notifications that suggest an item is nearly sold-out, the use of timers to urge customers to complete a purchase within a fixed time frame, surprise fees at checkout and clicking away from a pop-up that says that one may be missing out on a great deal by clicking away.
A new Princeton study unveils the few ways that shoppers can get coerced by online stores. For the study, researchers analyzed more than 50,000 product pages from 11,000 shopping sites using a web-crawling tool. The team found more than 1,8000 instances of dark pattern usage on 1,254 websites, which, they say, is likely a low estimate of their true presence.
Arunesh Mathur, who led the study, reveals in the report that dark patterns could be affecting millions of people. Many don’t fully comprehend the impact on decision-making—but once familiar with these patterns, they’re seen everywhere.
Hidden costs go under the radar because they are designed that way so consumers don’t notice them, harming those who are unaware of these patterns.
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler, a professor of law at NYU, said a lot of online businesses count on users making emotional decisions while shopping.
“They cater to the very nature of who we are – online stores are designed to exploit our fears, anxieties and insecurities,” said Marotta-Wurgler.
Princeton researchers broke down dark patterns into seven categories: sneaking, urgency, misdirection, social proof, scarcity, obstruction and forced justice.
Almost anyone who has shopped online has encountered these tactics at some point, including many students at USC.
Ashley Kempf, a sophomore neuroscience major, said she encountered this when she signed up for a rewards program while shopping on Abercrombie.com.
“I casually clicked on it and it sent me into a tunnel full of deals – 20% off this and 40% off that – you feel like you’re getting a really good deal but I ended up buying things I didn’t ever think about buying, and didn’t really need,” Kempf said. "I had to delete all the emails to stop myself from being tempted because they just kept coming.”
Katie Papazian, a senior communications major, said she had to deal with the onslaughts of online stores in her job at a semiconductor company.
“I purchased a bunch of canvases at this website. Every time I went back to their website after that, they had things that were 90% off and if I stayed long enough it changed to 88% off – it kept changing for no reason,” she said. “I’ve also tried very hard to get off their emailing list, but the unsubscribe button doesn’t seem to work.”
Not only can these dark patterns put a dent in many people’s wallets, but it can also cause people to reveal personal data. Chetty, who was a co-author of the Princeton study, said it’s the ethical concerns that inspired the study.
“We wanted to get a sense of the problem so that the government can pass legislation that would make it difficult for providers to use dark patterns,” said Chetty.
The Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits deceptive business practices and the DETOUR act, a bill passed in April 2019, aims at regulating and banning these dark practices. Still, many sites continue to display misleading marketing messages.
While some patterns can be classified as illegal and be taken action against, the rest exist on a continuum of ethics, according to Marotta-Wurgler.
“There’s a spectrum between what’s advertising and what we call ‘aggressive advertising’, and what tempts us versus what’s just plain deceptive,” she said.
Marotta-Wurgler said certain tactics take away the choices of consumers.
“The harmless tactics are the ones that consumers can understand and has choices. The problematic practices are the ones where our choice is stripped away and we don’t feel like we’re in control of taking actions that are in our best interest,” Marotta-Wurgler said.
Even though many firms can get away with using dark patterns, consumers can fight back by learning and becoming more aware of the strategies online retailers use. Marotta-Wurgler said through simple practices, a lot of money and time can be saved.
“Always set things to private mode while browsing and think twice before you give out your information when buying things. Whenever you sign up for anything that could bill you later, set a reminder on your phone to remind you when to cancel so that you’re not charged," she said. "Retailers don’t make it easy for you to get off their lists, but you have to persist and protect yourself as a consumer in the current landscape.”
Correction made 11:42 a.m. on Dec. 5, 2019: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of Florencia Marotta-Wurgler. The story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling. Annenberg Media apologizes for this mistake.