BAIT CLICK

Dark patterns fool millions of Indians every day. The government is finally acting, but it just may not be enough

- BY K. SUNIL THOMAS

IT’S A BUSY DAY, despite being a Sunday. In between finishing some pending work on the computer and house chores, I decide to order in brunch. On the food delivery app on my phone, a little box on the screen catches my eye. Titled ‘Your Usual Order’, it showed a restaurant called Dhaba By Eleven, and a Gosht Keema Mutter from there has already been added into my check-out cart.

How very convenient, one might think, except I have absolutely no recollection of this restaurant. I trawl through my past orders and discover an obscure order I had made from this restaurant once, about six months ago!

This sly trick from a food aggregator app is just a drop in the ocean of deceptive marketing and sales tricks that millions of Indians fall prey to every day on the internet. Ever seen the countdown timer telling you a particular discount is available only if you click on it within the ‘deadline’? Or an airline booking site offering you a great deal, but, at the last stage, adding hidden fees like taxes, user fees and what not? Or a platform which makes discontinuing a subscription the stuff of rocket science?

All these come under the umbrella of ‘dark patterns’, a term coined by London-based user experience designer-turned-activist Harry Brignull, to describe the treacherous ways of website and interface design that fool customers. (Examples of dark pattern, though, can be found in the physical world, too.) And, as more and more Indians, particularly those who are not proficient in English or marketing jargon, start using the internet and start ordering from all the Flipkarts and Amazons of the world, they face the risk of being fooled into losing money, personal data and privacy. (Flipkart told THE WEEK that the company had nothing to say after a questionnaire about dark patterns was sent).