5 ms·

Great video and great website. My only nitpick: the author wants the industry to agree on a "code of ethics." Unfortunately, such exhortations strike me as na

by cs702 10y ago

Great video and great website. My only nitpick: the author wants the industry to agree on a "code of ethics." Unfortunately, such exhortations strike me as naive. They are unlikely to work, because the truly bad actors will continue to use dark patterns regardless, putting pressure on all other actors to follow suit. The key challenge is not in getting the good actors to do the right thing, but in preventing the bad actors from doing the wrong thing. Meanwhile, even sophisticated consumers like HN members pay a cognitive or financial cost to deal with dark patterns every day, which are prevalent throughout the web. Everyone I know is sick and tired of this crap. The only viable solution I can think of is regulation in the form of a consumer-protection agency, working with the industry, that can fine bad actors up the wazoo. Does anyone here have a better suggestion?

soared 10y ago
I agree and that goal sounds similar to the goal of Kill Analytics [1]. "The industry" doesn't even exist as an entity. Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. But on the other hand, Google AdSense has done a lot to improve advertising online. Popups and bad ads used to be waaay worse than they are now (not that they are okay now). So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change things. [1] https://hello-kill.github.io/ https://hello-kill.github.io/
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  > So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change things. The question again is, how to make those big players do something that will lose them money.
  - soared 10y ago
    Do it in a way that earns them more money. Sounds difficult but that is what adsense did. If legit ux practices earn more, companies will use them. Potential scenario: someone makes a browser plugin that blocks dark patterns as if they were ads, so companies who use them don't see any traction with them. Or 50 years out when everyone is computer literate, users are aware of dark patterns and punish companies who use them by not buying their products.
    - st3v3r 10y ago
      AdSense also had the massive data Google had on users to entice advertisers with. What would entice Google this time?
      - soared 10y ago
        Conversion rate optimization tools and data. Businesses turn to dark patterns to increase the conversion rate, and there isn't a ubiquitous tool for them to use. In theory google could provide a lot better funnel analytics and offer suggestions/options to improve that aren't dark patterns. Its a stretch, but hey..
- mtgx 10y ago
  For advertising, there is an "industry" that can agree on such things, and it's called the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In fact, they're now acceptingpublic comments until December 22 on the new ad types that are supposed to be "leaner": https://www.iab.com/newadportfolio/ https://www.iab.com/newadportfolio/
  - soared 10y ago
    Thats a good point for advertising. Though iab doesn't touch much for onsite ux outside of display ads. In my limited experience iab perpetuates/supports what most consumers would see as deceitful. Not CRO, but excessive data collection and sharing. (I'm iab ad ops certified)
- alphapapa 10y ago
  > Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. So we can have more "This website uses cookies, okay?!?!?" banners popping up all over the place? No thanks. Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law?
  - soared 10y ago
    Yeah those popups suck. I think there are better ways to implement things like that. Maybe a button in a web browser that reports sites to a 3rd party that assesses sites and can hand info over to the government for levying fines.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    >Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law? "Bureaucrats" already tell you how to design your website. There is already laws against some forms of deceitful advertising, unfair trade practices, and information sharing and the like. For example, let's say I was working to design an airline ticket booking site... https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airlin... >For both domestic and international markets, carriers must provide disclosure of the full price to be paid, including government taxes/fees as well as carrier surcharges, in their advertising, on their websites and on the passenger’s e-ticket confirmation. In addition, carriers must disclose all fees for optional services through a prominent link on their homepage, and must include information on e-ticket confirmations about the free baggage allowance and applicable fees for the first and second checked bag and carry-on. How about those hotel "resort fees?" Currently they FTC says they are OK as long as they are disclosed before booking. So a hotel can advertise $20/night but when you go to book say "lol btw there's also a $30 resort fee." This of course makes comparison shopping impossible and exists for no other reason to deceive you. Rumor has it the FTC is going to backtrack on the policy and disallow separate resort fees.
    - alphapapa 10y ago
      Those aren't web site design issues, they're truth-in-advertising and business practice issues, which apply to all forms of advertising and business. I'm talking about technical and design issues, like requiring every web site in the EU to pop up a stupid banner while you're trying to read something that blocks the content just to say, "Hey! We use cookies! Got it?" Now imagine taking that to the next level, with pages of regulations saying where and how other form elements must be laid out on the screen. Imagine another banner popping up on every EU web site saying, "Hey! Here's the link to our privacy policy! Got it?" Then clicking that away stores a cookie, which pops up the cookie banner... All because some bureaucrat who doesn't even know what an HTTP cookie is wrote a regulation requiring everyone on the whole continent to acquiesce to the bureaucrat's ignorance so he can claim to be pro-consumer and privacy-conscious and get reelected. You want more of that?
- ktta 10y ago
  Does anyone know how this is different from/compares to Privacy Badger[1]? It is also a chrome[2] and firefox extension[3]. [1]:https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger [2]:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... [3]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badge...
  - majewsky 10y ago
    Privacy Badger is more on the defensive side: It allows you to avoid tracking, so you just disappear from the POV of the analytics platform. Kill Analytics looks more offensive. It actively sends garbage data to the analytics platform, thus destroying its value proposition to the site operator and discouraging its continued use.
sourthyme 10y ago
What about an organization that helps consumers to cancel or opt out of deals instantly. From the talk if a dark pattern gets a consumer to accept a deal, it is very difficult to leave, so going to help for this could work especially if the help can cancel hassle free very quickly.
pipermerriam 10y ago
Blockchain based application platforms can allow re-architecting of applications such that the data that backs the application is not "owned" by the company, but instead is either public or user owned. Currently, if you want to use LinkedIn you have to either use their website. Sometimes there are 3rd party options that consume the API but in the current model of the web, as soon as one of those 3rd parties is seen as problematic then API access is typically revoked or restricted to give power back to the company. In the public data model the data and API are publicly exposed and cannot be arbitrarily restricted. In the LinkedIn case this would allow a 3rd party to build a new UX on top of the LinkedIn database that excludes the copious dark patterns. Under this model, companies who abuse their users risk getting displaced by an alternate application backed by the same data that favors the user. - Disclaimer: I work pretty much exclusively developing software in the Ethereum ecosystem which is one such blockchain based platform.
- tyleraldrich 10y ago
  Sure, blockchain-based applications might have that ability... but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? What incentive does any company that uses these dark patterns constantly have to use a blockchain-based application? Especially because most of the time, the users data is the profit machine, so companies certainly want to own the data that backs the application.
  - pipermerriam 10y ago
    > but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? They don't have any incentive and I suspect they will hold onto that data until it's "pried from their cold dead hands". I think that companies like LinkedIn and other massive data silos are going to atrophy and die as users migrate to new platforms that treat them better and give them more control over their data and experience. I'd like to point out that while there is little incentive for current companies to adopt this architecture, it doesn't mean that new companies won't be successful implementing their business under this architecture. Admittedly, almost all of this is utterly unproven given the newness of blockchain based application platforms. One way to look at this is that the current model of internet companies is highly anti-competitive. The data they "own" is really the data of all of their users who can freely give it to any other source they choose. The fact that they have control over the database is what gives them the competitive advantage. These new application platforms which have open public databases can change the game such that the previous closed-data model can no longer compete.
SilasX 10y ago
What about certifications? Some certifying org can (for a fee) routinely audit websites for whether they use dark patterns. Then, people just know to avoid sites that don't have a good certification, and can report shady stuff. If they push the envelope too hard, you report, they follow up and can potentially pull the cert. Maybe have browser integration too. (But good luck disambiguating between this and SSL certs for the average person...)
godelski 10y ago
A code of ethics is a perfectly acceptable solution actually. Several other institutions have codes of ethics that must be followed and there have been legal adoptions because of them. For example the Hippocratic Oath. Many times doctors have been asked to do harm to patients. Of course it does happen, BUT if a doctor refuses and gets punished in some way for that then a major lawsuit can ensue. Many engineers have codes of conduct as well. I think this would be much harder to pass, and would be more akin to financial advisers being required to be fiduciaries, but hey, that is now required in the US. What is required for that to happen is mainline support though. But that will be difficult to get. I think this is, like the privacy stuff, is a little too abstract for the average person.
nilved 10y ago
> The only viable solution I can think of is regulation in the form of a consumer-protection agency, working with the industry, that can fine bad actors up the wazoo. A code of ethics would be 100x more effective than this, and still be ineffective.
Hydraulix989 10y ago
It's a tough situation. If I'm a developer (say, a junior engineer with my first real entry-level software engineering job out of college), my direct manager (who generally supervises and stringently handholds) basically tells me exactly which features need to be implemented (and often, even how). I don't have much of a say in which patterns (dark or light) get implemented, and I probably won't have the gull to "stand up" and "rock the boat" as a 22 year old fresh out of school. It's even worse if I'm married with kids... How do I explain to my wife and children why I lost my job for refusing to implement the product guys' ill-conceived version of "Roach Motel" in the frontend? This is why I sympathize with the VW lowly engineer "fall guy" whose head met the chopping block for the entire pervasive executive diesel cheat scandal.

by cs702 10y ago

soared 10y ago

I agree and that goal sounds similar to the goal of Kill Analytics [1]. "The industry" doesn't even exist as an entity. Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. But on the other hand, Google AdSense has done a lot to improve advertising online. Popups and bad ads used to be waaay worse than they are now (not that they are okay now). So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change things. [1] https://hello-kill.github.io/ https://hello-kill.github.io/

TeMPOraL 10y ago
> So maybe we do just need a few big players to step up and change things. The question again is, how to make those big players do something that will lose them money.
- soared 10y ago
  Do it in a way that earns them more money. Sounds difficult but that is what adsense did. If legit ux practices earn more, companies will use them. Potential scenario: someone makes a browser plugin that blocks dark patterns as if they were ads, so companies who use them don't see any traction with them. Or 50 years out when everyone is computer literate, users are aware of dark patterns and punish companies who use them by not buying their products.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    AdSense also had the massive data Google had on users to entice advertisers with. What would entice Google this time?
    - soared 10y ago
      Conversion rate optimization tools and data. Businesses turn to dark patterns to increase the conversion rate, and there isn't a ubiquitous tool for them to use. In theory google could provide a lot better funnel analytics and offer suggestions/options to improve that aren't dark patterns. Its a stretch, but hey..
mtgx 10y ago
For advertising, there is an "industry" that can agree on such things, and it's called the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). In fact, they're now acceptingpublic comments until December 22 on the new ad types that are supposed to be "leaner": https://www.iab.com/newadportfolio/ https://www.iab.com/newadportfolio/
- soared 10y ago
  Thats a good point for advertising. Though iab doesn't touch much for onsite ux outside of display ads. In my limited experience iab perpetuates/supports what most consumers would see as deceitful. Not CRO, but excessive data collection and sharing. (I'm iab ad ops certified)
alphapapa 10y ago
> Gov regulation seems like the only viable way to fix it. So we can have more "This website uses cookies, okay?!?!?" banners popping up all over the place? No thanks. Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law?
- soared 10y ago
  Yeah those popups suck. I think there are better ways to implement things like that. Maybe a button in a web browser that reports sites to a 3rd party that assesses sites and can hand info over to the government for levying fines.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >Besides, do you really want a bureaucrat telling you how to design your web site, with penalties enforceable by law? "Bureaucrats" already tell you how to design your website. There is already laws against some forms of deceitful advertising, unfair trade practices, and information sharing and the like. For example, let's say I was working to design an airline ticket booking site... https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airline-rules-fares https://www.transportation.gov/policy/aviation-policy/airlin... >For both domestic and international markets, carriers must provide disclosure of the full price to be paid, including government taxes/fees as well as carrier surcharges, in their advertising, on their websites and on the passenger’s e-ticket confirmation. In addition, carriers must disclose all fees for optional services through a prominent link on their homepage, and must include information on e-ticket confirmations about the free baggage allowance and applicable fees for the first and second checked bag and carry-on. How about those hotel "resort fees?" Currently they FTC says they are OK as long as they are disclosed before booking. So a hotel can advertise $20/night but when you go to book say "lol btw there's also a $30 resort fee." This of course makes comparison shopping impossible and exists for no other reason to deceive you. Rumor has it the FTC is going to backtrack on the policy and disallow separate resort fees.
  - alphapapa 10y ago
    Those aren't web site design issues, they're truth-in-advertising and business practice issues, which apply to all forms of advertising and business. I'm talking about technical and design issues, like requiring every web site in the EU to pop up a stupid banner while you're trying to read something that blocks the content just to say, "Hey! We use cookies! Got it?" Now imagine taking that to the next level, with pages of regulations saying where and how other form elements must be laid out on the screen. Imagine another banner popping up on every EU web site saying, "Hey! Here's the link to our privacy policy! Got it?" Then clicking that away stores a cookie, which pops up the cookie banner... All because some bureaucrat who doesn't even know what an HTTP cookie is wrote a regulation requiring everyone on the whole continent to acquiesce to the bureaucrat's ignorance so he can claim to be pro-consumer and privacy-conscious and get reelected. You want more of that?
ktta 10y ago
Does anyone know how this is different from/compares to Privacy Badger[1]? It is also a chrome[2] and firefox extension[3]. [1]:https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger [2]:https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pkehgijcmpdhfbdbbnkijodmdjhbjlgp?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke... [3]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-badge...
- majewsky 10y ago
  Privacy Badger is more on the defensive side: It allows you to avoid tracking, so you just disappear from the POV of the analytics platform. Kill Analytics looks more offensive. It actively sends garbage data to the analytics platform, thus destroying its value proposition to the site operator and discouraging its continued use.

sourthyme 10y ago

What about an organization that helps consumers to cancel or opt out of deals instantly. From the talk if a dark pattern gets a consumer to accept a deal, it is very difficult to leave, so going to help for this could work especially if the help can cancel hassle free very quickly.

pipermerriam 10y ago

Blockchain based application platforms can allow re-architecting of applications such that the data that backs the application is not "owned" by the company, but instead is either public or user owned. Currently, if you want to use LinkedIn you have to either use their website. Sometimes there are 3rd party options that consume the API but in the current model of the web, as soon as one of those 3rd parties is seen as problematic then API access is typically revoked or restricted to give power back to the company. In the public data model the data and API are publicly exposed and cannot be arbitrarily restricted. In the LinkedIn case this would allow a 3rd party to build a new UX on top of the LinkedIn database that excludes the copious dark patterns. Under this model, companies who abuse their users risk getting displaced by an alternate application backed by the same data that favors the user. - Disclaimer: I work pretty much exclusively developing software in the Ethereum ecosystem which is one such blockchain based platform.

tyleraldrich 10y ago
Sure, blockchain-based applications might have that ability... but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? What incentive does any company that uses these dark patterns constantly have to use a blockchain-based application? Especially because most of the time, the users data is the profit machine, so companies certainly want to own the data that backs the application.
- pipermerriam 10y ago
  > but what incentive do companies like LinkedIn have for doing this? They don't have any incentive and I suspect they will hold onto that data until it's "pried from their cold dead hands". I think that companies like LinkedIn and other massive data silos are going to atrophy and die as users migrate to new platforms that treat them better and give them more control over their data and experience. I'd like to point out that while there is little incentive for current companies to adopt this architecture, it doesn't mean that new companies won't be successful implementing their business under this architecture. Admittedly, almost all of this is utterly unproven given the newness of blockchain based application platforms. One way to look at this is that the current model of internet companies is highly anti-competitive. The data they "own" is really the data of all of their users who can freely give it to any other source they choose. The fact that they have control over the database is what gives them the competitive advantage. These new application platforms which have open public databases can change the game such that the previous closed-data model can no longer compete.

SilasX 10y ago

What about certifications? Some certifying org can (for a fee) routinely audit websites for whether they use dark patterns. Then, people just know to avoid sites that don't have a good certification, and can report shady stuff. If they push the envelope too hard, you report, they follow up and can potentially pull the cert. Maybe have browser integration too. (But good luck disambiguating between this and SSL certs for the average person...)

godelski 10y ago

A code of ethics is a perfectly acceptable solution actually. Several other institutions have codes of ethics that must be followed and there have been legal adoptions because of them. For example the Hippocratic Oath. Many times doctors have been asked to do harm to patients. Of course it does happen, BUT if a doctor refuses and gets punished in some way for that then a major lawsuit can ensue. Many engineers have codes of conduct as well. I think this would be much harder to pass, and would be more akin to financial advisers being required to be fiduciaries, but hey, that is now required in the US. What is required for that to happen is mainline support though. But that will be difficult to get. I think this is, like the privacy stuff, is a little too abstract for the average person.

nilved 10y ago

> The only viable solution I can think of is regulation in the form of a consumer-protection agency, working with the industry, that can fine bad actors up the wazoo. A code of ethics would be 100x more effective than this, and still be ineffective.

Hydraulix989 10y ago

It's a tough situation. If I'm a developer (say, a junior engineer with my first real entry-level software engineering job out of college), my direct manager (who generally supervises and stringently handholds) basically tells me exactly which features need to be implemented (and often, even how). I don't have much of a say in which patterns (dark or light) get implemented, and I probably won't have the gull to "stand up" and "rock the boat" as a 22 year old fresh out of school. It's even worse if I'm married with kids... How do I explain to my wife and children why I lost my job for refusing to implement the product guys' ill-conceived version of "Roach Motel" in the frontend? This is why I sympathize with the VW lowly engineer "fall guy" whose head met the chopping block for the entire pervasive executive diesel cheat scandal.