Don't Click On Pop-Ups

When visiting a new website on your phone or computer over the past 18 months or so, you’ve probably seen it: a notification informing you that the page is using cookies to track you and asking you to agree to let it happen. Most websites you visit now greet you with a pop-up to secure your consent, to retain information about you.

Cookies are small files that websites send to your device that the sites then use to monitor you and remember certain information about you, like what’s in your shopping cart on an e-commerce site, or your login information. 

Since the European Union started enforcing GDPR in mid-2018, nearly every website you visit now covers a part of the content you're trying to read with a notification about the use of cookies on the site. Full-screen pop-ups will block the entire view of the page but it’s also common to see 'lightbox' pop-ups that block a portion of the page. Now, web designers are using methods derived from the dark web to design fake pop ups which are an effective way of encouraging web users to lose their time, money and privacy. These are being referred to as Dark Pattens, sets of practices that website designers can use to manipulate website users.

Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying things or signing up for something that you did not intend.

Dark design is used to influence our decisions about our time, our money, our personal data and our consent. But a critical understanding of how dark patterns work, and what they’re hoping to achieve, can help us detect and overcome their deceptions.

Normally, you’ll set a pop-up to trigger after a short delay, when a user scrolls to a certain part of the page or use something called exit-intent popups that trigger when a user’s mouse hovers near the top of the browser window. The cookie banner purports to offer you a choice: consent to only the essential cookies that help maintain your browsing functionality, or accept them all. The “accept all” button is large and  highlighted, while the  less prominent “confirm choices” or “manage settings” buttons - the ones through which we can protect our privacy - can deter users with additional time-consuming clicks.

E-commerce websites often use dark patterns. Perhaps you have found a competitively priced product you’d like to buy. You create an account, select your product specifications, input delivery details, click through to the payment page, and discover the final cost, including delivery, is mysteriously higher than you’d originally thought. Online purchase of apparently discounted airline tickets are a common example. 

Britain's Information Commissioner is now in discussion with other countries to join forces against cookie pop-ups online and has urged G7 countries to address this problem, highlighting how fatigued web users are agreeing to share more personal data than they’d like. 

Manipulating users for commercial gain isn’t just used on E-commerce websites and is extending  in to Apps. The key problem with dark design is that it’s difficult to spot and web users have become anesthetised by purported free services such as Facebook and YouTube, which monetise their users' attention by placing advertisements in front of them as you scroll, browse and surf. 

NiemanLabs:       BBC:    Dark Patterns:      Arxiv:       Vox:       Vertical Leap:      Zapier:

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