Beware! Dark patterns are here…

If you have even a remote interest in behavioural economics, there is a high chance that you would have heard about two celebrity authors in this area. First would be Daniel Kahneman (most famously known as the author of ‘Thinking, fast and slow’) and the second would be Richard Thaler (co-author of the book ‘nudge’). As the ‘science’ of behavioural economics has developed over last 2 decades, so has the concept of ‘nudge’. In plain English, nudge refers to artificially providing some input to an individual so that the individual behaves in a way you would like him / her to behave. A simple example is to send a message reminder asking an individual to do something (avail discount, take a loan, take a holiday etc) and a reminder may goad the individual to do exactly that.

Now, in a broader sense, nudges have been there throughout the history of humanity. In the old testament, the serpent (~ devil) nudges Adam & Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and the rest is history. In Hindu mythology, the Kasturi Mrig (golden deer) would have qualified for a nudge for Sita as she requests Lord Ram to capture it and this facilitates her kidnapping. One could argue that advertising of any kind could qualify as a nudge.

But why are nudges getting increasing attention and scrutiny? First, sophisticated algorithms can customise nudges to specific individuals and situations to the extreme. Second, an action (buying something, providing confidential information) is all too easy (& could lead to immediate damage) given fancier phones and fast internet we have access to nowadays.

Just like pretty much everything in life, nudges could be good (nudging someone to undergo regular medical check-ups every year) or bad (tricking someone to do something with a bad intent). The later variety has been recently termed as ‘Dark Pattern’- I know, this sounds really sinister and Darth Vader like (I am sorry I am a Star Wars fan after all!). Wikipedia defines a dark pattern as a deceptive use interface (App, website etc) that is carefully crafted to trick users into doing things that are not right. Let’s say you are trying to buy something on a website and immediately you start getting notifications that say ‘but now, only one left in stock’ or ‘buy now, the deal will close in next 10 minutes’. These instances would classify as dark patterns and not good-old nudges.

Indian government took a futuristic decision last week to announcing guidelines for eCommerce and other online companies cautioning them against using dark patterns. Dark patterns have been brought under Consumer Protection Act.

Now, this may look like a positive step, but monitoring and taking action against platforms for implementing dark patterns is extremely difficult. Also, most of us are not even aware that we are subjected to nudges and dark patterns every day.

Finally, it will all boil down to us – the consumers – becoming more aware. In complicated contract law legalese, the Latin phrase used is ‘Caveat emptor’ which translates as ‘let the buyer beware’ in plain English. Sounds like a good logical step?

Anyways, I have to go now. I was browsing some possible holiday options before I started writing my weekly blog and I am now getting frantic notifications that I may be losing out on some super holidays deals. I think I should quickly go and avail the deals, or should I not?

Something to think about…