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[Music]
so dark patterns what is this probably
everyone who has used the internet
recently has seen this obnoxious Banner
you need to use cook keys to use the
site and then you are presented with an
easy answer in green and shiny yes to
all or you can reject them and have to
click 400 individual trick boxes this is
a dark pattern and dark unicor will now
present us with the details about it
from a developers perspective and what
you can do about it and how do we want
to discuss this so welcome and a round
of applause in front of your screen
thank you yeah thank you exactly I'm
going to shake my screen accidentally uh
well yes uh I want to talk a bit about
the um parts of dark patterns that make
them uh so obnoxious and way they work
and also as a developer who um as a web
developer I want to talk a bit about the
um business side of things and
um so yeah let's just get
started
[Music]
uh so um what are dark patterns uh well
dark patterns are tricks used in
websites and apps that make you do
things that you didn't mean to like B
buying or signing up for something which
is the definition from dark pns.org
which is a very good site on topic
um what does that mean uh I'm I'm
defining them as uh design choices that
are intentionally inaccessible to
further the cost of capitalist profit
maximization which definitely is a bit
politically charged but um that's
intentional so uh a bit more specific um
well XKCD has also made this uh perfect
example for an very annoying dark
pattern that is like the most common
form that you encounter basically every
day so yes cookie consent forms or I
wouldn't actually call them con because
that's not what consent means so why are
that patterns well first of all
obviously capitalism profit maximization
being valued over good user experience
seeing the customers as as simple
numbers not people and um sadly another
part of it is that journalism is dying
because they can't Finance themselves if
no one buys the newspaper subscriptions
anymore so they need to finance
themselves and they fall back to dark
pattern sadly um everybody's doing it
also kind of uh a reason because there
are these um pre-built libraries that
you can just include to be gdpr safe um
that include dark patterns so it's
rather easy to um to add a dark pattern
to your side um by accident or by
incompetence whatever so and there's
also debod privacy regulations like the
D gdpr which in general was a very good
idea like um giving C people more
control over their own data um limiting
how the data can be abused by companies
however it wasn't written in a good way
especially around cookies so yeah these
content forms that are legal uh and in
the end only hurt the customer because
your data is still being stolen however
you just have to click away some
annoying popup every time you use the
internet so um let's dissect some
examples uh as to how dark patons work
and what they're
doing um the first uh thing that you can
see a lot is uh reject option styling
and position so accept is always the
primary color that usually you want to
click every time you just want to finish
a task um the uh reject button is either
grade out so it doesn't look like you
can click it at all um which is also
really bad if the contrast is too low to
actually read what the button was saying
or they don't look like a button at all
we have this uh wonderful example from
the Windows 10 installation um the red B
was added to show actually where one has
to click uh if they want to install
Theos without creating a Microsoft
account so that usually is just this
limited experience text that is where
you would usually have to click if you
wanted to go back a step because you
want to delete some setting you already
made
so
um that's definitely uh one way where
you simply if you're not an expert in
cusing these things you simply don't
know how to not
consent um another thing is uh
interesting use of language so obviously
difficult to understand language from
non-technical fols uh switching language
between site text and consent form which
is common that the site is in German for
example and then the consent form is in
English or as this wonderful example
here is
um the form switches uh languages in
between saying what it is about and what
the actual cookies are used for which
definitely would be an issue if I didn't
uh didn't speak both languages so um
there's also the double negative do not
send me no marketing emage so you just
have to think a bit what you're actually
saying if you hit that checkbox and also
learn more um that doesn't equal no
and on most sides where you have to hit
learn more to say no which doesn't
actually make that much much
sense um
so uh another thing is uh blocking the
user quick uh from quickly closing the
popup some sites go as far as Runing the
scrolling to make it impossible to close
inab browsers like uh in many inab
browsers you have to uh scroll up to
make it
um uh to make the little x button
visible to close the internet browser
and they ruin your scrolling so you
can't close it which is especially
annoying if you've accidentally clicked
some Link in Twitter or whatever and
then you can't go out of these uh
websites without
um without closing the whole app the
close buttons also doesn't mean I
consent but uh sites simply say it does
so uh if you if it's a modal and you
just hit the close X on the on the
corner or if you just hit the backdrop
which will close the modile and many
sites they will say that means I consent
but it does not mean that
um there's also the way too many
checkboxes youve got an example where
there's a bunch of text then there's a
small little frame that uh Scrolls
individually where all the checkboxes
are so you always have to scroll to see
every single change um every single
thing you might want to change which uh
is definitely annoying um and there's
the wonderful disregard my choices
button underneath the checkboxes so you
just went through all of these 400
checkboxes said no to every single one
and then you hit accept all and um
suddenly your choices aren't worth
anything um then there's also one thing
because this isn't just about cookie
consent uh it's about trying to sell
your subscriptions when you don't want
them many sites will default to some
kind of subscription when you buy
something like uh we've got these
subscribe and save things from Amazon um
where the button it usually would buy
just one uh means that you will get like
every two months a new delivery
without without it looking any different
than buying a single product and uh if
you're tired or not very adapted to
language or simply just um got this
popup fatigue because you just
constantly have to click the lighting up
button to to just do what you were
trying to do um this definitely uh very
likely to trick you um there's also this
Humble Bundle example here where uh this
add to card button seems like it would
add the bundle to your card because it
says total one
item uh zero so it looks like you don't
actually have the bundle in your in your
card at that point which you don't
because you haven't selected an amount
but if you hit add to card you will add
this 16
subscription which doesn't really have
anything to do with the bundle you are
trying to
buy then there's also a for Action um
with things like impossible to close
popups like log to continue uh which is
especially annoying if the site let you
see some parts of it like Instagram does
so you were shown some
um uh someone linked to their Instagram
you were scrolling down and suddenly you
have to uh log into Instagram or install
the app uh to continue seeing what you
were trying to see um there's also many
news let's do this uh a button if you
want to read the article you have to
disable your ad blog otherwise you're
just going to see this annoying page I
don't actually know how they're doing it
to disable the adlock but probably
there's some uh some API and another
thing I found interesting is that sites
tell you you cannot not consent to
cookies if your browser setting doesn't
say do not track um they also tell you
how to set that setting however um
that's a lot of steps and also many
sites simply this uh simply disregard
that setting or refuse to work if it set
so when the do not track setting was
first added I remember um enabling it
and suddenly being left with an unusable
internet
so yeah that's also a dark pattern
because people have to go out of their
way to um to not be
tracked another like smaller thing is
this Logan with Google everywhere um it
pops up on every sub page on sites that
included and I don't really see an
benefit in uh in logging in with Google
to read some some blog post because I
just want to read some text uh it's
nothing I have to um write a comment or
anything uh and every time I open uh a
new sub page this popup will annoy me so
I might just click at this button once
and then it's gone for for as long as
the session cookie
lasts then um there's the building up
pressure which is especially common on
hotel booking s so you have time
sensitive deals that commonly aren't
time sensitive at all but they look like
it like you see here 19% today off uh
tomorrow it will also be 19% off but
it's today um there will also be the
almost sold out here we have um three
different kinds of rooms uh in some
hotel and they only have five left for
every single one I guess they only had
five to begin with but now it looks like
uh in red text it looks like that's
little uh a small amount so you just got
to book now to not um miss out on it and
there's also the uh X people are looking
at this right now uh I was actually
trying to find it on a hotel booking
site but apparently even they know that
in 2021 no one would believe it that
some hotel booking site is uh heavily
trafficked and you have to buy now but
you see a bit less bad uh example from
uh
eBay where it says this was opened uh 17
times uh 86 were already sold and we
only have eight left so by now are you
not going to get it at
all and a whole collection of dark
patterns um is what you will find if you
try to cancel your Prime Membership um I
actually thought I had canceled my Prime
Membership a couple of months ago before
checking for this talk
so um in order to cancel your Prime
Membership you have to go to this uh my
Prime then you go to Advanced controls
go to my Prime Membership then you have
to um open this little carrot thing um
which allows you to end your membership
then you will get a very scary uh alert
message attention uh by canceling you
will lose the following
benefits um then there will be a a
button not U let me cancel but it is I
do not want my benefits or I want to
keep my benefits
um but we're not done even if we hit the
I do not want my benefits button because
then you will um be sent to uh another
site which says well good news exclusive
you exclusively for you prime for less
money that is not an exclusive deal it's
simply if you decide to pay once a year
and that's available for everyone at all
times so that's actually kind of a lie
um so so uh let's say okay that deal
didn't get me to uh keep my membership
so uh I will hit end
membership then I will be sent to yet
another subsite where I finally get to
end my membership and Prime benefits uh
like at the next possible time and then
once you click that you will be
redirected to a site which will show
multiple scary alerts like you've just
made made some mistake which uh you can
obviously undo with a single click
because they make subscribing as easy as
they can you will also get uh multiple
emails and when you buy something for
the next time it will give you some
actual deal I think I don't know if you
can get Prime for a Euro for a week um
and some red text alert telling you yeah
you you really want uh you really want
to resubscribe to Prime for some reason
um and they keep changing my language
this is kind of annoying but
not the point
here um however one thing that's good
about Amazon it was possible to
unsubscribe online so this is the New
York Times uh theoretically you could
chat with a customer care Advocate um to
unsubscribe however uh all of them are
currently occupied so you could call
this Us phone number which definitely is
not possible for everyone and uh this a
huge additional step just to cancel some
prescription that you definitely did not
use a a phone call to to to
start and when looking at these things
it's also important to note that these
things are a lot worse if you're
disabled so phone cards may not be
possible for anxiety reason or or if
you're um there for a whole a whole lot
of different reasons low contrasts like
in these disagree buttons may not be
visible and uh in general there's a lot
more physical motion necessary to
accomplish your goals and it's likely
that they will also not have the
appropriate tab index setting set photos
uh check boxes where you can
theoretically
disagree um in addition to being worse
if you're disabled there are also a lot
worse if you don't have much money
because not consenting is a very timec
consuming thing to do and if you're just
on your break and just want to catch up
on some use that's possibly uh that's
not possible in many cases she monitors
also handle low contrast uh really badly
so even if you're not color blind you
might not be able to see the contrast
because your screen is just too um too
cheap um when you hit more options or
learn more or whatever uh sites often
reload which uses more bandwidth and
more time spend rendering especially on
low powerered hardware and also failing
to cancel a subscription can hurt a lot
financially like I just said I didn't
realize that I hadn't canceled my Prime
subscription that a sign of real
Financial privilege that I have uh in
this case so if I didn't have that it
would be a huge problem to just spend
eight a month for something I didn't
want and
um yeah so uh I've got something admit
uh to admit because I have actually
implemented the dark pattern before it
wasn't my first real job after I've got
my
apprenticeship and
um it was at a company where I had
actually thought they wouldn't never do
such a thing because they were really
popular and kind of like caring about
their customers at least what they show
to the outside
um I also tried to tried to talk
management out of it but that wasn't
possible at the time so about six months
later I left the company I was pretty
burnt out and like leaving your first
job this uh early also um makes R up
their skills a lot uh because like
especially if you've already got low
sestem that's really difficult and I
also definitely felt like [ __ ] for
ignoring my moral standards because I do
not want Dark patterns on the internet
and I had just implemented one um
however I'm happy it turned out that way
I'm not no longer at the company I'm at
a different one where I'm a lot happier
but well that's
my my personal story but um yeah what
does it say about your job if you have
to um if you have to implement a dark
pattern um it says that your employer
sees maximizing profits is more
important than respecting their users
because shoving a dark pattern down the
road is definitely uh no sign of respect
so they probably think of their
customers in terms of how much money
they can make from them um so they're
likely to think of their employees
similarly which often leads to things
like not enough appreciation for your
work too many tasks and too little time
um or no ways to use work time for
non-directly money-making activities as
education which definitely would profit
them if they allowed you to educate
yourself on time however it only um
profits them after a bit of time so uh
they want to make as much money as
quickly as possible so they will not
allow you to do that in many cases
definitely not always um and you simply
do not have to accept
this uh well what can you do against it
first step obviously talk with your
employer maybe there can be reason with
maybe they didn't know that how bad it
was to implement something like that um
so that's definitely a good idea uh if
that doesn't lead to anything you could
join a labor union which gets you a
better bargaining position with your
employer and try to talk with them again
found a workers Council which allows you
to um speak for everyone who voted for
you which means um employers often tend
to isolate your issues like you're the
only one who doesn't want the stock
pattern so it's a personal is that you
have uh if you're a part of workers
Council you can say no it isn't these
people all voted for me it's my um it's
my job to uh to talk to you about it and
yeah I can speak for them and if none of
that is possible or doesn't work you can
quit your job because Tech professionals
are always in high demand um even during
a pandemic where it's a bit more
difficult to find a job but it is still
possible um and you may even get
like-minded colleagues to leave with you
uh and maybe found a cooperation where
you would um end up with a lot better uh
working
environment well
um uh thank you all for listening uh
slides will be published on my blog um
I'm also reachable on that email address
uh if you couldn't find uh if you
weren't able to ask in the following Q&A
um which we have a bunch of time left
for uh so yes have a nice remaining
confidence everyone and thank you for
your
time okay thank
you so we are going to go through the
questions um the first one is uh could
you give some details about what dark
patterns they wanted from you like I
guess what uh you were asked to
implement at your first job if you want
to uh answer that well I can't exactly
say it because like NDA stuff but um it
was about making customers use uh spend
more money because uh they were like
nudged to uh go with a different uh with
different
plan
um next
question
um well it's more of a remark um as you
spoke about Amazon Prime um that uh sky
is probably also difficult to cancel uh
your
subscription
um
and we obviously don't have that many
question this
time I see something top typed in right
now
so all everyone who is still in the IRC
chat or um looking at the pad or at the
stream you find the in the video descri
video description there's a link to this
question and answer answering pad and I
see people are using it right now so
they are coming
in
um
and
yeah so so let's just wait for a minute
uh for more questions to come in and uh
do you have any more remarks that you
want to fill the time with
maybe
um so uh I just chose so with the uh Sky
uh thing I just uh chose Amazon Prime
because I wanted some really bad example
and I just knew it was uh it was one of
the worst uh experiences to cancel Prime
because I remember doing it before and I
apparently failed at doing so um so yeah
obviously lots of pages are are similar
it's not like Amazon is the the only bad
player here
um yeah and obviously there's um a
monetary incentive for companies to
nudge people in this direction and also
if the the network effects or the
everyone is doing that so should we
should do that too uh is obviously a
concern so uh if you have you if you are
in a position to discuss or even change
that um you can do make for a better
internet for everyone basically because
you
um you
uh yeah you inhibit a a precedent like a
bad example and you can you can uh
change that indirectly so that others
don't see it as a bad example that they
have to copy so there's a lot of
questions coming in oh I'm sorry I
interrupted you yes uh that's also real
true because as the more PE uh websites
use dark patterns the the less bad it
feels for people to implement them
because always yeah everyone's doing it
why why wouldn't I um so yeah definitely
uh if you can block a dark pattern
definitely do so
right um oh yeah now now people are
waking up and uh posting
questions
um so let's see if we get short answers
to short questions um so you as you
already said you you had concerns in
your first job um did the did management
come off up with excuses or
justifications or did they just like we
pay you to do this so do it
please um I don't think there was a
place in there uh I did speak um I
didn't I wasn't able to speak directly
with the people making the decisions I
was uh talking with my uh Team lead and
he said he didn't think it was a bad
thing but he said okay if you're
concerned about this I talk to
management and then I never heard
anything about it again so
it wasn't really possible to speak with
anyone
uh who would actually listen and um
understand why it's an issue yeah so
that proves that it's really difficult
to get into that in that position to be
able to make a
choice um so there's a question
regarding the eBay example what in your
eyes are the difference between a dark
pattern and
information and how to identify
them yeah the eBay example actually uh
is a bit of a gray gray area for me
because um if something is going to be
sold out soon I kind of want to know it
because it would be bad not to
um uh it would be really bad not to get
what I want but um in many cases these X
people are looking at this right now
aren't even real so uh there are many
sites where you can just refresh and it
will show you a different random number
every time that's definitely a dark p
um uh with the eBay example it was just
something I could find quickly because I
wanted to use stuff that I could
screenshot and as I said the hotel
booking sites currently don't employ
this because they know you wouldn't
believe
it so I guess this goes into the
direction of um cognitive biases and
logical FES and uh like simulating
scarcity like just five
hotel rooms for example left so hurry up
even if no one if you can't can't verify
that there's just five yes um next
question there are also dark patterns
for increasing engagement with aite or
retention times so people look look at
the site for a longer times including
videos that autoplay or follow you as
you scroll down we all know that from
social media of some sorts do you have
any experience with those or a comment
on
that um yeah so the thing is these
videos I don't know anyone who actually
enjoys those I think everyone is annoyed
by them but that may be just my bubble
um the retention uh keeping retention is
definitely a large issue especially with
with com commercialized uh social
networks like Twitter that will um like
uh not show your notifications for
example when they come in uh be uh if
lots of notifications come in at once so
they can uh spread them out over time so
you get another reason to look at the
app uh all the algorithms like buil to
always seem like there's new content for
you so you're always kind of missing out
and you get that fear of missing out on
something like your best friend wrote or
anything um those are definitely very
harmful uh there's luckily some social
media that isn't built like that uh so
you can still get the experience of uh
streaming to the void and pretending
you're socializing so that's good but um
yeah those are definitely very harmful
and I I know I'm I'm easily victimized
by it because I do spend too much time
on social
media and I bet there's a lot of people
who are very good at at evoking exactly
these these feelings and these
reactions so you mentioned that many
libraries implement the gdpr cookie
setting in a bad way are there any
libraries that offer nice cookie
Banner
um I can't name any right now because I
haven't actually uh on my own terms
implemented anything that actually
requires a cookie Banner because
everything that requires a cookie Banner
is something that most people wouldn't
actually consent to like tracking um
people and there's even tracking
libraries that don't require consent
because they only track stuff that
happens on your side and um don't like
try to steal all data they can so so um
there's definitely better options I've
seen some uh same looking ones that had
uh okay position buttons and a reject
all button that was just there but I
can't tell you any names right
now um then I will uh add that uh some
listener pointed out that there's non
noos non-governmental organizations like
idri European digital r or digital Kur
and so on and uh linked
uh a note on ethical web development so
that's valuable I think and people were
appreciating your focus on low and
especially um lowincome situations and
that how how exploitative this
is then then
um here is a question about uh if you
know something about
LinkedIn um I do know that it is pretty
terrible from my experience um like
LinkedIn employs a bunch of dark
patterns the the cookie uh cookie stuff
uh is definitely there if I remember
correctly they will always tell you that
you should install the app because the
experience is so much better now
actually when you install up they get
more data um and they sent you so many
emails even if nothing actually happened
so they will send you like a daily email
about you were found on X searches look
at LinkedIn right now even though no one
actually interacted with you that's even
the reason why I had to ignore some
interesting recruiters were searching
for for a job earlier this year because
it was just a flood of useless
information with just tiny bits of
useful stuff in between I actually
created a whole other LinkedIn inbox and
it's got 100 20 unread emails even
though I always try to see all of my
emails so yeah LinkedIn is a perfect
example for uh for a site that employ St
patterns in my
opinion um I experience similar similar
things also for example uh with eBay
that they also flood you with a lot of
information that you have never asked
for so uh do you have suggestions how to
do something about it on as a user user
how can you how can you sort through
this even if you can't actively change
the thing or the way things are so that
you don't have to quit using the service
or the site or whatever but ex improving
your experience
yourself um so there for for many
popular um websites there are third
party clients that will employ less dark
patterns so uh if you want to look at
someone's twitter profile there's uh nit
at if I remember correctly so it's a um
client that simply just shows you the
timeline of what someone posted there's
also YouTube FL and that don't apply as
many adct patterns and don't shove some
autop play suggestion down you as soon
as you stop watching something um but in
the end if we are forced to use uh those
sites and if they keep if they if they
keep using dark patterns we are kind of
in a in a bad position because we can't
do so much about
it especially if sites don't have these
uh improved third party front ends that
obviously um they don't like so they
will commonly change their API so those
uh front ends W will no longer work or
they ban them in their um in their terms
of use
so I don't really know what we can do
except complain and complain loudly and
maybe talk with our lawmakers so they
could uh take steps to uh make this
whole situation a lot better for
us that's kind of sad news but uh I
guess we have to keep
trying and trying to make a difference
or we also need to reboot the
internet yes but I don't know if this
will happen anytime
soon um so the we are done with the
question so
far um I want to thank you for your
presentation and your answers
um and so I wish everyone a nice deok
and a nice uh
[Music]
Easter