3 ms·
This kind of "hall of shame" websites are interesting to me. However, most of the regular users do not know nor care about this stuff. Well, in a semi-ideal wo
by aamederen 10y ago
This kind of "hall of shame" websites are interesting to me. However, most of the regular users do not know nor care about this stuff.
Well, in a semi-ideal world, there would be a comprehensive "hall of shame" database containing the information about the tricks, problems, dark patterns, etc. for all websites. Then, some helper apps or browser extensions could warn us about these issues while a regular user is browsing.
One of the problems with this idea is that it gives a huge authority to the owner of that database and there would be lots of questions about its neutrality.
- Cafey 10y agoIn an ideal world we could detect those patterns programmatically but as you hinted, there is the question of "when is it considered a dark pattern and when is it only clever marketing?".
- TeMPOraL 10y agoThe answer is actually clear - it's always "dark pattern" from the POV of the user, and it's always "clever marketing" from the POV of the business applying it. Each side draws the line so far in the direction of the other that there isn't any easy compromise.
- xster 10y agoOne concrete thing I think can be done right now is to make a Chrome extension that audits the current website on the number of dark patterns and visibly surfaces a score for the website so people can flee from them like the plague/websites-with-the-broken-ssl-padlocks. Vote with our wallet.