Centre steps up fight against E-commerce dark patterns, holds high-level meet with Amazon, Flipkart, Meta & others
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs confirmed that representatives from all major online sectors — including food delivery, travel, electronics, cosmetics, clothing, pharmacy, and retail — will be attending. Prominent players in the market such as Amazon, Flipkart, Apple, Meesho, Meta, MakeMyTrip, Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Uber, Paytm, Tata, WhatsApp, EaseMyTrip, and Reliance Retail are among the invited stakeholders.
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07:00 PM IST
Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Pralhad Joshi, will lead a high-level stakeholder meeting on Wednesday in New Delhi to address the growing concerns around dark patterns used by e-commerce platforms.
The Ministry of Consumer Affairs confirmed that representatives from all major online sectors — including food delivery, travel, electronics, cosmetics, clothing, pharmacy, and retail — will be attending. Prominent players in the market such as Amazon, Flipkart, Apple, Meesho, Meta, MakeMyTrip, Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Uber, Paytm, Tata, WhatsApp, EaseMyTrip, and Reliance Retail are among the invited stakeholders.
The meeting will also see participation from key industry bodies, Voluntary Consumer Organizations (VCOs), and leading National Law Universities (NLUs), whose insights and research are expected to help shape stronger and enforceable guidelines.
“Their insights, research, and regulatory perspectives will provide valuable input into shaping robust and enforceable solutions,” the ministry noted in its official statement.
What Are Dark Patterns?
Dark patterns are deceptive design tactics that trick users into taking actions they may not have intended — such as subscribing to a service, making unintended purchases, or sharing personal data. These patterns often hide critical information, create false urgency, or mislead users through confusing language or interface design.
According to the ministry, these practices undermine fair competition, violate consumer rights, and damage trust in digital commerce.
Actions taken by the Government So Far
To curb the rise of such manipulative practices, the Department of Consumer Affairs released detailed guidelines on November 30, 2023, identifying 13 key dark patterns, including:
- False Urgency
- Basket Sneaking
- Confirm Shaming
- Forced Action
- Subscription Traps
- Interface Interference
- Bait and Switch
- Drip Pricing
- Disguised Ads
- Nagging
- Trick Questions
- SaaS Billing
- Rogue Malware
To further promote technological solutions, the Department also launched the Dark Patterns Buster Hackathon 2023 in partnership with IIT (BHU). Held on October 26, 2023, the initiative invited students from IITs, NITs, and other premier institutes to create innovative tools — such as browser extensions, apps, and AI-based solutions — aimed at detecting and preventing dark patterns.
Following the hackathon, three consumer-protection apps were developed with IIT (BHU) and officially launched on National Consumers Day 2024.
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