It’s pretty easy to spot dark patterns when you look out for them, but I found a pretty obvious example of this.
Stoofie is a brand that sells water fountains for your pet (I don’t know what the problem with a water bowl is, but I digress). WayBack Machine
Plastered at the top of their website is “33% OFF Ends Today- Free Shipping” with no way to dismiss it. There is a scrolling text under the main image “FAST AND FREE SHIPPING 60-DAY FREE RETURNS”
If you scroll down, you’re immediately introduced with a product with the option to buy two preselected. The rest of this section explains itself:
Other things are sprinkled in the main page, but it really is the prime example of dark patterns. I am personally sick of finding them, but would love to see more examples of what others have found. Please, share your favorite examples of dark patterns. Don’t forget to archive them first so they can never be lived down.
(I don’t know what the problem with a water bowl is, but I digress)
(cats are more likely to drink moving water than still water since moving water is less likely to have bad things growing in it)
They also (generally) don’t like to have their water next to their food because when they drink they put their head down and can’t see predators that might be attracted to the food.
For some reason one of my cats only drinks water that she scoops up with her foot.
It means we have to clean her bowl way more often than should be necessary because the debris her feet collect gets deposited in the water bowl.
We have a cat that scoops her food out of the bowl, walks a few feet, drops it on the ground and eats (most of it). It’s very annoying to constantly have to sweep up cat food. Maybe this is related.
We have a cat that does that too. She’ll drink normally as well, though. I view it as her cleaning her little feet.
Working for a certain big fucking corpo(that I utterly hate from bottom of my heart but don’t really have an option to leave), I see those patterns all over the product. Not just that, its practically impossible for non tech savvy to choose a non bundled or cheaper product or plan because it’s burried somewhere out of your sight
Those are pretty bright patterns in my book. More of the usual BS.
Most cookie consent dialogues:
- There’s only one big accept button
- If the decline button even exists, it’s grey whereas the other one is green.
- The decline option could be buried deep under other menus.
- The sizes of the buttons
Most companies are trying to actively manipulate you to accept all cookies, but nowadays there are a few companies that don’t resort to any of these dirty tricks.
The one that scares me the most is:
Accept all or Settings
And you have to opt out 5-10 buttons and at the end there is a “save settings” or the “accept all” button again in green.
Who has time for this shit? Just for a stupid article? We need laws against these.
I’m honestly surprised no-one has built an extension to automatically opt out of them, or at least the major cookie providers interfaces.
I realise there are many extensions which outright block cookies, etc; I’m meaning specifically the annoying dialogues you describe
Aarhus university has done exactly that! https://consentomatic.au.dk/
It doesn’t work 100% of the time but it’s pretty good
Oh they care. They care a lot. Particularly that you don’t have any so they can sell all your details to any bidder.
You forgot a million switches for each “partner”. More like prostitution.
I’m not sure what you mean by “dark patterns” in this context. Isn’t this just marketing?
Is it that the more expensive choice is pre-selected? That the discounted price is likely just the real price and it’s never sold at the higher price? (that one got Saatva in trouble! - https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/open-lawsuit-settlements/11-5m-saatva-com-false-advertising-class-action-settlement/)
I read recently that the phrase “noticing patterns” is a racist dog whistle but I don’t have a firm handle on how or why.
I don’t know if dark patterns are exempt but the timing is weird.
