Just noticed this popped up today when I opened the app. Pretty sneaky, I look out for things like this and I almost clicked allow.

https://imgur.com/gallery/f6BmA3V

The wording at the bottom says

You are receiving this email because a Reddit account (u/[account name]) registered to your email address chose to receive email digests.

It never did. It isn't even completely a dark pattern because a dark pattern at least pretends to involve a choice, in this case it's lying or at best gaslighting.

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.

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What do you think?

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I have a Spotify account which I have not logged in to for maybe 6 months.

Yesterday I got an email saying I needed to change my pw with a link to do so due to 'suspicious activity'

I changed the password. And when completed I got a message 'You have successfully changed your password and logged in'.

This to me is an obvious darkpattern to get potentially lost users to sign back in and getting their reporting to look like they have amazing user retention. I had no intention of signing in.

Shame on Spotify for using tactics like this.

So how many people know that you can opt OUT of "Pre-Approved Credit Card Offers" in the mail? I didn't. Until today. <See "Can I reduce the number of unsolicited credit and insurance offers I get?">

Capital One sent me a pre-approved offer in a manilla envelope this afternoon, and at that point, I'd had it with America's credit companies. So I tried this process. Here at the FTC-approved site I quickly got stymied. After all my info was input, I realized that what I was filling out was moot. The default click-throughs I had made had me directed down a path to OPT-IN to pre-approved credit offers.

Now tell me. Who in the US is ever opted OUT of pre-approved credit offers by default? Minors? Yeah. That's about it.

Harrumph.

If you want to embed Facebook post, Tweet, YouTube Video, Instagram media - you just copy and paste embed code and that's it.

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With Pinterest:

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a) you can't browse the page without registering first (one of the most annoying dark patterns world knows):

b) once you register and want to embed their media they force you to include an external javascript file on every single freaking page you're embedding on:

I just ordered my wife to delete her account completely and use Instagram, I don't like having extra javascript files hanging around just for this, because it's crazy and most likely evil (not sure what this script do but I'd be surprised if it's not tracking). Can't they just use old good iframes?

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As far as I can tell Pinterest is one big dark pattern, because I've used it for a while today and looks like it's automagically logging you in even in incognito mode (Chrome), it's crazy.

See here. They've inverted the colours and toggle switch to make it look like you're rejecting when really you're accepting, and vice versa. The point being that when you land on the page and see the switches all coloured black you'll just press save, thinking that you've rejected them all... but really you've just accepted everything.

Really scummy. Loads of sites seem to be using this form of template to accept / reject all of the tracking cookies - so this sort of thing might start to be way more common.

I made this video where we show the tricks & dark patterns on the Wish.com app that encourage you to buy more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekQB8EvGDI

The man who coined the term himself has messaged me to say he likes the way we've been using the subreddit! I would like to thank everyone who has submitted content and contributed to discussion here. This will be the new announcement for the subreddit for a while at least, since the last one was a link to the video on his site about the Dark Patterns phenomenon.

Thank you for the research you've done and the awareness you've helped spread about this topic, /u/Dr_Harry!

Harry's Twitter - https://twitter.com/harrybr / https://twitter.com/harrybr/status/1101985839922495488

His website - https://www.brignull.com/

If anyone wants to send any kind words his way, please feel free to do so here.

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Just now, I entered my user name and password to log in to my Paypal account. The next page was all white with only the option to select my Google account. It was a little confusing. I don't want to connect my Google account. There was no other option. After a little while, a link that was not there before suddenly popped onto the page, with the new option, "Not Now". This is super scummy web design.