CCPA Asks Ecommerce Players For Self-Audit To Detect Dark Patterns

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued an advisory to all ecommerce firms to take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms do not engage in deceptive and unfair trade practice which are in the nature of dark patterns.

This comes days after consumer affairs minister Pralhad Joshi asked ecommerce companies to conduct self audits to analyse and remove dark patterns.

“All ecommerce platforms have been advised to conduct self-audits to identify dark patterns, within three months of the issue of the advisory, and take necessary steps to ensure that their platforms are free from such dark patterns,” the notice said.

For the uninitiated, dark or deceptive patterns are techniques used by online platforms to manipulate users into making purchases or decisions not best in their interest. These might include telling a user that a single piece of an item is left, thereby creating urgency, or adding an additional item in purchase without explicitly taking consent.

The CCPA noted that it has also sent notices to e-commerce platforms, with instances of dark patterns that violate the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns.

Based on the guidelines, the government highlighted 13 different types of dark patterns prevailing in the online platforms, including false urgency, disguised advertisements, basket sneaking, subscription trap, confirm shaming, among others. 

Non-compliance with these guidelines can result in penalties under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, including potential fines and imprisonment. 

Based on reports, consumer affairs’ secretary Nidhi Khare recently mentioned that the CCPA issued 11 notices to companies for employing dark patterns. Overall, she said more than 400 notices have been issued for unfair trade practices.

Meanwhile, price fluctuations on quick commerce platforms have been a major concern, among other troubling issues that have emerged.

Users have flagged these issues on social media platforms such as Reddit and X, highlighting the charges discreetly hidden under bill summaries, hidden handling fees and small cart charges, to name a few.

On the other hand, prices being charged differently on the type of device used by a consumer has been a loudly spoken issue, particularly in the case of Zepto and some of the ride hailing platforms.

In light of this, the Centre was in plans to build a mobile application to alert consumers of the deceptive techniques of the ecommerce players.