Hall of shame

Psychology Today website is a roach motel. You can't remove your credit card info, you can only change it. There is no way to stop the service through their website interface. Have to contact them to get it stopped.

FT.com, making it very easy to sign up for a monthly charge of 28 € instead of cancelling subscription which was my intended purpose.

I'm pretty sure I observed a dark pattern with Spectrum cable's support chat. If I am right, they're trying to weed out people by making them wait as a sort of barrier to using chat.

This website uses a privacy management tool called TrustArc which makes it much slower to opt out of tracking than to opt in.

When confirming preferences to 'Allow Apps to Request to Track', the text is confusing and does not make it clear whether apps are not allowed to track the user, or won’t have to ask before tracking them.

Running and cycling app Strava's Flyby privacy settings are automatically set to be shared with everyone. Thus users passing one another will be tagged in each other's runs, and able to access their full name, picture and a map of their running route.

"A new study out of Princeton shows that the vast majority of campaigns use dark patterns and clickbait subject lines to beg for donations."

"At a time when many parents are looking for more opportunities for educational enrichment online, it is disappointing that services like ABCmouse have scammed millions of dollars from families through dark patterns, as alleged in the Commission’s complaint. By making it extremely difficult to cancel recurring subscription fees, ABCmouse engaged in conduct that was not only unethical, but also illegal."

Children’s Online Learning Program ABCmouse failed to disclose important information to consumers, leading many consumers to be renewed & charged for memberships without their consent

A loan popup screen appears when a user logs in to Pakistani bank HBL's app. It features a picture, some text and Yes/No buttons to begin evaluation of your loan, all in English. This could lead to users who did not want a loan getting one and paying it back with 25-35% interest.

StoriesOnBoard does not allow users to cancel their subscription without sending an email or starting a support chat.

The Tfl App's Privacy Settings offer a ‘Accept All’ but no ‘Reject All' option. For users not wanting to Accept All the option is to 'Manage Cookies' which then leads the requirement to 'Manage Partners’. Users may find this time-consuming and non-transparent.

Wired's consent management platform shows unselected settings as having 'Objection applied'. A box to opt-in is labelled 'Remove objection'. Using the word 'objection' implies shaming the user for not having opted in.

Social media platforms repeatedly use so-called dark patterns to nudge you toward giving away more of your data.

Now TV takes subscribers wishing to cancel through multiple screens asking them if they're sure they wish to cancel before letting them select 'I still want to cancel'.

"While nutrition and food labelling is in the news, here's a thread about the nutrition information labels which are required to appear on prepacked food in the UK, and how they can be manipulated with increasingly absurd definitions of a "serving". Examples follow..."

You've seen them before: the UX ploys designed to trick you into spending money, or make it nearly impossible to unsubscribe. Here's what to look out for.

Numerous dark patterns employed by the Trump campaign.

Amazon requires the user to turn on device notifications in order to use AmazonSmile.

I’m still not sure how to unsubscribe from care.com

A class action lawsuit was filed in June 2020, alleging that the New York Times has been violating California law by automatically renewing consumers’ subscriptions without proper authorization and making it “exceedingly difficult” to cancel existing subscriptions.

Although it's arguable whether this was on purpose or not, it is likely to have driven ad revenue from accidental clicks.

This coursera course looks free, which tempts users to register. Once they have registered, the website reveals that the course is not free.

Discount Tire Unsubscribe Dark Pattern? Here is default view.

Qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM)

The New Yorker's consent preferences are unclear. The option for ‘Do Not Sell My Personal Information’ appears to be on, implying the user has selected not to have their information sold, but the instructions say to move it to the left to turn it off. This is confusing.

Udemy Course Dark Pattern for Price Discount, Happened on multiple courses as soon as I clicked buy now or log in it would go back to the original price, I heard they were stealing professors lectures as well and not compensating them or dealing with copyright well either.

Ryanair's text for subscribing to their mailing list says 'If you don't wish to receive these offers, please opt-out' but the tick box is checked by default. This is confusing for the user - do they need to leave the box checked, or uncheck, to opt out?

Tried out @yousician, but sadly hit right away with @darkpatterns. Tap "Start with free trial" (primes me that I'm not committing to anything yet), give finger ID (almost an habitual thing, as it's required for free apps too) and you just signed up to a 145 USD/y plan.

Look at this misleading crap from @CondeNast. The switch labeled "do not sell my personal info" actually needs to be switched to OFF to keep info private, only explained in the small print. And even though I clicked "do not sell" to get this popup, it's set to ON by default!

I've received an email from @netflix asking me to "finalise the signup" when I don't remember registering. Worried about the identity theft etc went to a chat & discovered this is a "PROMOTIONAL EMAIL".

Dark #UX pattern spotted on @yahoomail - ads are styled to look like unread emails, making it too easy for users to accidentally click on the ad and drive revenue to Yahoo and their advertisers.

When you press the menu icon the result seems to randomly switch between displaying the full menu where you can choose to open the song in Spotify, save it, or share it, and the Apple Music only pop-up. Sometimes you can press it multiple times & get only one result or the other.

@nntaleb Just saw this today. Tesla refunds in general should be easy to get electronically \& certainly through customer service. Will he addressed.

Elon @elonmusk, your Customer Support at Tesla is even worse than I claimed last time. It is an insult to your customers.

On the @NewYorker's site, there's a cookie setting literally called "Sell My Personal Information". If you disable it, it will auto-enable itself when you use the CTA to close the window! Absolutely egregious disregard for ethical UX.

I hate stuff like this, came across this one recently on @WishShopping. Also important to note, this only, modal comes up after you submit a form of checkboxes, where the last box resubscribes you to a weekly drip campaign

So, @outlook/@Microsoft wants me to manually un-check like 100 companies if I don't want them collecting my data... #privacy

Very @darkpatterns example by @Microsoft? What are my options here? "Accept optional data..." as opposed to "Yes send optional data...". I wish not to send anything. Which option should I choose?

Plusnet with their intentionally confusing language.

WTF @ICICIBank, why would I need life cover while transferring funds to a friend!

After hunting down the tiny link I was sure I had cancelled my @LinkedIn premium subscription last month. Turns out they switch the primary and secondary button so at a glance you think you are performing the opposite action

Facebook makes it hard for users to leave facebook via their browser's back button.

Trying to unsubscribe from @Yahoo/@verizonmedia

That Facebook and its #UX#darkpattern When you are on the web, it shows you a message that does not exist to download the messaging app, Hook Model in action.

Google hiding the ability to say no thanks only if you scroll down. Not immediately obvious that you can

A signup window for ClickUp says: 'Save 26 days per year. We analyzed the time saved by over 4,000 teams after switching to ClickUp. That's 624 hours back!' Underneath, the button for not signing up is labelled 'No, I want to waste 26 days'

Hey @RevolutApp. What's with the confusing, blatant dark pattern messaging here when I go to toggle targeted marketing? Why MUST you be so sneaky? Why? Why?

Check out this gem. Change in standard answer, followed by double negative content.

Textbook example of @darkpatterns in Europe: @BogdanCovrig & I visited this webshop from three different browsers & they seem to personalize their timers to the specific browser call. No math.random(), but still curious. Days don’t change, just minutes & seconds.

Amazon makes you click Into "Advanced Controls", move past a bunch of options of which none is $0.00, and then search for a plaintext link just to cancel your subscription.

iPhone users are nagged to sign up to Apple Pay

stop making people jump through the hoop! make these processes simple and straightforward!

"Many streaming customers are unaware that the sitcom titles they prefer, the ads they do not skip, their email addresses and the serial numbers identifying the devices they use are being harvested and distributed."

See this #darkpattern all the time in cookie banners: the primary action is not 'confirm', but 'select + confirm all'

One of the worst @darkpatterns I ever came across: Press allow notifications to verify that you are not a robot. When you decline it even redirects you to a different subdomain and asks you again.

In this series of in-depth articles, Investigative journalist Justin Elliott looks into the various manipulative and deceptive techniques that Intuit allegedly used in their Turbotax software.

Dark Pattern Games is a review site that analyses the Dark Patterns used by different games. It has a voting system and is meticulously put together.

One of the many reasons I’m leaving @EE - pulling @darkpatterns like this. Go to buy more data (extortionately priced), choose “One-off” and a pop-up appears with “Monthly Recurring” as the prominent, highlighted option. Now I have to waste my time working out how to cancel…

Ok this is really funny, check this out. I was in the process of booking a flight via @OneTravel. Trying to make me book ASAP, they claimed: "38 people are looking at this flight". Whoa

This #darkpattern pops up from time to time in the @Citi @Citibank mobile app. There's no way to dismiss the initial pop up, and when you try to say No Thanks on the next screen, you must confirm you're not interested.

On log in, you either accept marketing emails or cancel which logs you out. No way to opt out here. That’s not good UX @Gumtree #darkpattern

"Add smart TVs to the growing list of home appliances guilty of surveilling people’s movements. A new study from Princeton University shows internet-connected TVs, which allow people to stream Netflix and Hulu, are loaded with data-hungry trackers."

Some more #darkpatterns here, by LinkedIn. You can either sync, or postpone for later.

Here’s a ridiculous example of a deceptive dark pattern. Looks like advertising and analytics cookies are off by default, but the red button actually turns them on. You have to click «more options» to keep it disabled.

@Touchnote has this gem on their pricing comparison page. One option is marked as "best value". The selected item promises $19.80 of savings. But...they are all the same price?

Hello @IKEAUK, this is from your self-service POS terminal. I don’t want to enter my post code, where am I supposed to press ‘No Thanks’ ?

You know what @NDTVFood, this doesn't give the greatest impression of your site.

check out this cursed shit i found on this site. it tells you to allow notifications to verify if your a human with a fake captcha. i only have seen the beyond burger site do this.

in Eventbrite's last step when you register for tickets. 'Go To My Tickets' not only signs you up for email marketing but it's already opt-in for you. Sneaky + interfering the interface.

Shame on @Quora for implementing a dark pattern that forces me to download their app without an option to exit this horrible popup

Example of @darkpatterns. The page I wanted to view is hidden by an overlay asking permission to show a popup. I don't want that, but my only options are 'yes' and 'not now, maybe later'. Where is the 'no', @buienradar?

Nice @darkpatterns here @meteofrance: “j'accepte” doesn't save the current settings, it turns everything on and exits. To keep the selected settings you have to chose “je valide mes choix”

Hey @Grammarly, kinda shitty UX trying to hide the button to cancel my subscription.

Trying to unsubscribe, so which option is colored, buttonized, front and center? Cancel, of course.

What a mischievous technique to trick people into giving in all the data by accidentally clicking the wrong click of action.

@darkpatterns on this danish Website. It says: You will also recieve our newsletter. Easy to unsubscribe. It has a checkbox that says: Okay, i understand. And if not checked, a warning appears forcing you to check it. Bad impression in the first 2 minutes.

Yet another example of @darkpatterns, this time found on @coursera. You cannot just decline, it's "now" or "later"...

The check-in process in @vueling hiding so many @darkpatterns to fool the passengers taking services we don't want as 'prioritary boarding

CBS makes it exceptionally difficult for users to cancel their premium subscription.

Hey @contactsplus you’re joining the @darkpatterns army!

Today @googlenews joined the ranks of "Sites that don't want you to use ad-blockers/privacy tools & just tell you that you're offline if you do" (along with @TheAtlantic) I'm fine with "Turn off your ad-blocker to use this site," less so with lying.

Deleting your TripAdvisor account? It's more complex than destroying a ring Did you notice that "back" button that looks like a submit one? Well it took me 3 times to realize I was always going backwards instead of deleting my account

"This article provides the first public evidence of the power of dark patterns. It discusses the results of the authors’ large-scale experiment in which a representative sample of American consumers were randomly assigned to a control group, a group that was exposed to mild dark patterns, or a group that was exposed to aggressive dark patterns. All groups were told they had been automatically enrolled in an identity theft protection plan, and the experimental manipulation varied what acts were necessary for consumers to decline the plan. Users in the mild dark pattern condition were more than twice as likely to remain enrolled as those assigned to the control group, and users in the aggressive dark pattern condition were almost four times as likely to remain enrolled in the program."

@usertesting the sadly ironic sales experience for visitors on your site is disappointing. No prices + minimal info on the pricing page = informed decision? Then chatbot that asks an unanswerable question & forces me to give email address/name before asking more.

This sadly looks like a @darkpatterns from @gitlab 2019 Global Developer Report: DevSecOps

Intentionally confusing buttons from “don’t be evil” @google @YouTube here.

"Do you want it or you want it? The choice is yours." What kind of UX #darkPattern sorcery is this lol...

@Quora, please let me know when you have fixed this very dark example of @darkpatterns. I do not have the app and do not wish to download it. You leave me no other choice than leaving Quora. If that's what you want, so be it.

Really poor @darkpatterns from @AdmiralUK. Sign up for car insurance online, manage account online, get email notification of auto-renewal (which I didn't explicitly sign up for) for a 38% increase in cost. No option to cancel auto-renewal online. Shameful and exploitative.

Another #DarkPattern from @listonic (a grocery list app). They use a blue button to add an item to your grocery list - but that button disappears when you scroll down. Their ad space, however, has a similar blue button plastered to it that's always visible.

Haven't seen this dark pattern before... Hit unsubscribe from an email, then like most people I almost skipped the "why?" part and almost got resubscribed. Car dealerships are still generally bad marketers.

Oof, a masterful dark pattern from @nationalexpress @darkpatterns

@crazyegg You know what users LOVE when they're reading articles? Takeover popups that interrupt them and can't be dismissed. This is some @darkpatterns shenanigans right here.

Frustrating: Can’t turn off @Netflix autoplaying next episode kids’ videos directly on smart TV (must use web interface) Bat-Sh*t Infuriating: @Netflix apparently CAN’T disable autoplay for KIDS profiles (only adult ones)? Shame on you.

I have no idea if analytics cookies are turned on or off. This obviously is not what 'good' looks like.

OK, so let's "continue to partners" (there isn't another option anyway). So this screen is now about advertising and tracking. There are 252 partners listed here, with 245 pre-selected. That is a lot of companies who want to know about you. Note the @darkpatterns usage of green.

Tried to redeem a @lionsgate digital movie download code, was forced into accepting spam marketing emails if I wanted to continue.

"Facebook users are prompt with a list of friend requests. They start tapping the ‘Confirm’ buttons, repeatedly, one after the other. At some point, the list starts showing suggestions instead of requests, but since the UI is almost identical, users easily miss this important difference, resulting in some unwanted friend requests."

"'Alexandra from Anaheim just saved $222 on her order' says one message next to an image of a bright, multicolored dress. [...] But “Alexandra from Anaheim” did not buy the dress. She does not exist."