New Delhi: In an extensive step towards protecting online shoppers from digital handling, the Central Consumer Protection Office (CCPA) directed all electronic trading platforms to carry out self-mudids within three months to identify and eliminate the “dark patterns” -Ceceptive design tricks.
The Directive issued on Saturday by the Ministry for Consumer Affairs calls on the platforms not only for the audit of their user interfaces, but also to present voluntary self-boring confirming that they are without these practices. The aim, as the office said, is to support a fair and transparent digital ecosystem that builds consumer confidence.
To support this effort, the Ministry for Consumer Affairs established a joint working group (JWG), which includes representatives of key ministries, regulatory bodies, national legal universities and consumer organizations. The group will regularly identify violations, propose campaigns to increase awareness and share the findings with the department.
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CCPA has already served notifications of platforms found to violate the instructions for the prevention and regulation of dark patterns, announced in November 2023. These instructions formally defined 13 such tactics, including false urgency, sneaking baskets, confirmation of shame, subscription trap, disguised advertising and interface.
The most common are false urgency – where the platforms create a misleading sense of deficiency to create quick purchases – and sneaking a basket that includes adding items such as insurance or gifts to a user’s truck without clear consent. Confirm that Shaming uses the blame for the users to drive for certain actions while the subscription traps facilitate registrations, but intentionally hard cancellation. Other tactics include prices of dripping, where hidden costs appear only at the cash register and promotional content masked as organic elements.
The procedure is part of a larger government strategy that limits unfair business practices in the rapidly developing sector of electronic trading in India. On May 29, the Ministry of Consumer convened a meeting chaired by the Minister of Consumers of the Pralhad Joshi trade unions, attended by representatives of more than 50 companies, including Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Flipkart, Swiggy, Paytm and Makemytrip, as well as industrial bodies such as NASSCOM, FICCI, FICCI, CAIT and CAIT. How companies can implement new measures.
The Mint report published on the same day noted that the government has already ordered electronic trading companies to perform annual internal audits to detect and eliminate dark patterns, calling it part of the “common strategy” to strengthen consumers in the digital economy.
The government also launched enforcement of strengthening also three technical tools developed with IIT-BHU within 2023 Dark Patterns Buster Hackathon: Jagriti App, which allows users to report deceit procedures; JAGO Grahak Jago, which provides real -time safety score for electronic trade links; and Dashboard Jagriti, analytical tool for regulatory bodies.
India is the first country to issue reserved instructions for regulating dark patterns. Government officials said that the aim is not to prevent digital trade, but to ensure that its rapid growth meets ethical standards and customer guarantees.
(Tagstotranslate) Dark Patterns India (T) CCPA Advisory
