Harms of
Dark Patterns

California "Do Not Sell" Requests

Dark patterns related to California Do Not Sell My Personal Information requests. This is a right given to Californians by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

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Denied Choice

A person will be disadvantaged by not having the agency and choice to make informed decisions through the product or service. E.g. A social profile is public by default, there is disguised data collection or price obfuscation in the user experience.

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Experienced Discrimination

A person who contributes user data to a product or service may experience unfair impacts based on demographic identifiers such as age, race, and gender. E.g.) discrimination in employment, insurance, housing, education, credit, etc.

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Felt Shamed

A person experiences difficulties in personal relationships due to stigma within one’s family or community. This may include harassment based on the sharing of personal information, leading to perpetrators reaching out to the individual in an unwanted way.

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Felt Tricked

Influencing a user’s decision in a way that may not be advantageous to their needs by using words, user experience or user interface elements to persuade you in an unintended direction. This may include making the user feel unnecessarily guilty about their choices or cause emotional or psychological distress.

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Forced Subscription

Forced subscriptions are instances where a site or app signs you up for a paid subscription to a service or product that you did not make the choice to actually sign up for. These are also called "forced continuity" or "negative option continuity plans."

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Lost Money

A person’s purchasing decisions are manipulated, resulting in the individual paying for more than intended. E.g.) Defaulting the person to the most expensive option, price discrimination, hidden fees in food delivery, etc.

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Lost Privacy

A person does not willingly consent to data collection, does not have a choice to decline in order to use a product or service, and/or is not informed where their data is shared. A company could provide data to third parties without a person’s knowledge or make posts easy to “overshare.”

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Wasted Time

A company may deliberately make a path more cumbersome by creating long and tedious processes that may encourage the user to choose a path they may not have originally intended.

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