Companies’ deceptive ‘dark patterns’ online cost you money — here’s how to fight back

See if any of this sounds familiar:

■ You can’t find an easy way to cancel an unwanted subscription, so you let it continue for another month — telling yourself you’ll try again later.

■ You feel rushed into an online purchase you regret, but there’s no option to undo the transaction or demand a refund.

■ You want to read an article or shop at a store online, but you’re bom- barded wi h pop-up requests for your data. There’s no easy option for saying no, so you click “allow” just to get the annoying pop-up out of the way.

These are just a few exam- ples of “dark patterns” — intentionally deceptive designs that companies use to steer people into making choices that aren’t in the consumers’ best interest.

Dark patterns may sound like a feature of sketchy websites, but these manipula- tive practices are a common way mainstream companies dupe people into sacrificing their privacy or paying for stuff they don’t really want.

Buttons that allow sites to scoop up and sell your data may be prominent, while the buttons for opt- ing out are obscured. Retail sites may use a countdown timer to imply a deal is about to expire, when in reality there’s no deadline. Or you might see a fake low-stock warning — “Hurry, limited quantities left” — that pres- sures you to buy.

Making something easy to buy but hard to cancel is another common goal of dark patterns.

What you can do to fight back

The burden shouldn’t be on consumers to prevent com- panies from deceptively col- lecting their data and money, Schwartz says. But there are a few ways consumers can fight back:

Slow down. Dark pat- terns often count on our ten- dency to move too fast when navigating the web, Hancock says. We need to slow long enough to read the options on a pop-up and understand what pushing a button actually does. Simply being more aware of dark patterns can help you spot them and defuse their effectiveness.

Don’t sign up or buy wi hout knowing how to cancel. Read a site’s refund policies before purchasing. Wi h subscriptions, the FTC recommends investigating the cancellation process before signing up and advises, “If it’s not clear to you how to cancel, walk away.”

Make a fuss. Document the dark patterns you find by taking screenshots. You can send those to the Dark Patterns tip line maintained by Consumer Reports.