The government requests that e-commerce businesses stop deceiving customers by adopting dark patterns

3 Jul 2023 , 11:25 AM

Top online retailers like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, BigBasket, Reliance Retail, Swiggy, and Meesho have received a letter from the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (MCA) requesting that they cease utilizing dark patterns to deceive customers as this is an unfair business practice.

According to Rohit Kumar Singh who talked to ET, secretary of the Department of consumer affairs, which is part of the Ministry of consumer affairs, the department is also developing guidelines to discourage the use of dark patterns.

In order to address the problem, the agency has urged the sector to self-regulate and create ethical design standards; otherwise, the offense would be punished as unfair trade practices.

Dark patterns refer to the use of a design and choice architecture to deceive, compel, or persuade customers to make decisions that are not in their best interests.

In a letter to the sector dated June 28, the secretary stated, ‘Engaging in such deceptive and manipulative conduct by using dark patterns in online interfaces constitutes ‘unfair trade practice’ under the Consumer Protection Act, (2019).’

The letter continued, ‘Therefore, I firmly urge you to refrain from engaging in any design or pattern in the online interface of your platform that may deceive or manipulate consumer choice and fall under the category of dark pattern.’

Dark Patterns are user interfaces designed to sway people into making decisions that aren’t in their best interests.

The ministry has identified 10 practices that fall under the category of ‘dark patterns,’ including fabricating a sense of urgency, slipping items into the final shopping cart, confirming shame, which involves shaming customers for not making a donation to charity, coercive action, including coercive signing up and nagging, subscription traps, interface traps, including making it difficult to leave a page, bait and switch, which refers to advertising one product while sending another, hidden fees, and disguised advertising.

With 759 million active Internet users in 2022, India has seen a growth in the use of smartphones and the Internet in recent years. By 2025, it’s anticipated that this would reach 900 million.

With this, the consumer digital economy in India is anticipated to increase from $537.5 billion in 2020 to a $1 trillion industry by 2030. This is a result of the widespread use of Internet services, making it crucial for the government to protect the interests of consumers.

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