E-commerce platforms advised to self-audit, eliminate dark patterns: Union Minister

New Delhi, July 22 (IANS) The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has advised e-commerce platforms to self-audit and eliminate dark patterns, said B.L. Verma, Union Minister of State for the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, in the Parliament on Tuesday.

Dark patterns involve using design and choice architecture to deceive, coerce, or influence consumers into making choices that are not in their best interest.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, during the ongoing session, Verma stated that the CCPA, under the Consumer Affairs Ministry, earlier this month issued an advisory for self-audit by e-commerce platforms to detect the dark patterns on their platforms that will help “create a fair, ethical and consumer-centric digital ecosystem”.

“All e-commerce platforms have been advised through the said Advisory to take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms do not engage in such deceptive and unfair trade practices which are in the nature of dark patterns,” Verma said.

“Further, all e-commerce platforms have been advised to conduct self-audits to identify dark patterns within three months of the issue of the advisory and take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms are free from such dark patterns,” he added.

Verma noted that based on the self-audit reports, “the e-commerce platforms should also give self-declarations that their platform is not indulging in any dark patterns in order to ensure a fair digital ecosystem along with building trust between consumers and e-commerce platforms”.

The advisory follows a meeting convened by the Department of Consumer Affairs in May, with representatives from major e-commerce companies and industry associations, that focused on eliminating deceptive online practices.

In November 2023, the CCPA issued guidelines for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns, listing 13 specified dark patterns identified in the e-commerce sector.

These dark patterns include false urgency, Basket Sneaking, confirm shaming, forced action, subscription trap, interface interference, bait and switch, drip pricing, disguised advertisements, nagging, trick wording, Saas billing, and rogue malware.

“Dark patterns encompass a wide range of manipulative practices such as drip pricing, disguised advertisement, bait and switch, false urgency, etc. Such practices fall under the category of ‘unfair trade practices’ as defined in the Sub-section 47 under Section 2 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019,” the Ministry said.

--IANS

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