FTC Study Finds Manipulative ‘Dark Patterns’ Among Subscription Services — 76% Have At Least One

Photo Credit: Clark Van Der Beken

The FTC and two international consumer protection agencies have conducted a study of dark patterns found in subscription services. The results show that 76% of subscriptions examined use at least one dark pattern, while 67% of them use multiple dark patterns. Here’s the latest.Dark patterns are digital design techniques that are intended to manipulate how a potential customer interacts with buying products or services. These techniques can steer consumers to take actions they may not have taken without the manipulation. Dark patterns are non-compliant with major consumer protection laws like the GDPR, COPPA, and FTC Act that forbid the use of deceptive design techniques to manipulate behavior in the corporation’s favor.

Some of the dark patterns employed by subscription services include hard-to-cancel subscriptions that force a consumer to jump through hoops to change or cancel their subscription. Another commonly used dark pattern is called ‘obstruction’ which causes a mobile app or website to become deliberately slower if you opt out of data processing. Trick wording and preselection are also considered dark patterns, as they are intended to drive user behavior to a company-preferred option—rather than their actual choice.

The FTC study was completed in partnership with the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network’s (ICPEN) annual review examined dark patterns across 642 websites and mobile apps that offer subscription services. The most commonly encountered dark patterns used in the study include sneaking, which hides or delays information that may impact a consumer’s purchasing decision, and interface interference, which obscures important information or pre-selects options that steers customers toward making decisions more favorable for the business.

That last bit is important because it’s essentially what Spotify is doing with its new Basic subscription tier. The basic tier option is not available to anyone who does not subscribe to Spotify already. You cannot go to Spotify and sign up for a basic music-only subscription—even if you only plan to listen to music on the service. Instead, you must sign up as a Spotify Premium member and then seek options to downgrade to music-only in your account profile.While the FTC and ICPEN study had “no findings as to whether any of these instances rose to the level of law violations, the collaboration underscores the way dark pattern techniques may impact not just consumer wallets, but also their privacy choices.”