Alyssa Boyle reports:
We’re about to see a lot more enforcement against dark patterns from the Federal Trade Commission and on a state level.
Dark patterns involve using manipulative or ambiguous language that pushes people to take an action they either don’t understand or wouldn’t normally take, such as sharing their data or agreeing to recurring online payments.
Holding companies to account for using dark patterns has largely fallen to the FTC, which enforces against “unfair or deceptive” business practices as defined by Section 5 of the FTC Act.
For example, the FTC’s is in the middle of a “dark patterns” investigation against Amazon over its Prime promotion practices.
But now, US privacy laws are starting to mention dark patterns, too.
Read more at AdExchanger.