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ASCI extends code to misleading online interfaces by brands

ASCI extends code to misleading online interfaces by brands
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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With an eye on protecting Indian consumers from misleading online messaging, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), the self-regulatory body of the ad industry, plans to extends its code to what it calls ‘dark patterns’ in online advertising. Currently, ASCI’s advertising code asks companies and brands to self-regulate which requires ads to be legal, decent and truthful. The self-regulatory body receives and resolves complaints against ads that are dishonest, offensive, harmful and unfair in competition.

Unveiling a white paper on Thursday, ASCI said dark pattern is the online user interface that has been crafted to trick or  manipulate users into making choices that are detrimental to their interest --- such as buying a more expensive product, paying more than what was initially disclosed, sharing data or making choices based on false or paid-for reviews, among others. E-commerce companies spend millions of dollars in designing user interfaces and navigation paths that eventually lead to more business. “However, when these are done in a way that steers the consumer to choices that are prejudicial to their interest, a line is crossed,” ASCI said. The terms “dark patterns” was coined by user experience designer Harry Brignull in 2010, it added.

The council said it proposes to cover such “dark patterns’ under four heads: Drip Pricing, Bait and Switch, False Urgency and Disguised Advertising.

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In Drip Pricing, sometimes when a user is shopping online, only a part of a product’s price is disclosed to the buyer until heshe reaches the page where the payment needs to be made.  This creates ambiguity around final price and the representation is misleading. ASCI suggest that the quoted prices must include non-optional taxes, duties, fees and charges that apply to all or most buyers.

The regulator is also seeking more transparency in other methods that online brands and sellers employ. In Bait and Switch, as the name suggests, when a user takes an action expecting one outcome, heshe instead is served an outcome they didn’t want. For instance, a consumer may select a product offered at a certain price but is thereafter only able to access it at a higher price. False Urgency highlighted by ASCI means that companies should not state or imply that quantities of a particular product are more limited than they actually are.

ASCI also warns against Disguised Advertising where an advertisement mimics editorial content and doesn’t  clearly disclose that it is an ad.

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The ad industry regulator said that it has proposed to extend its code to how a UI/UX (user experience interface designs) is deployed by digital platforms and can manipulate consumer choices and consumption patterns. For now, it will be voluntary compliance where it will give guidelines to designers, companies as well as students and the media to understand these dark patterns and expect them to be compliant.

According to its white paper ‘Shining Light on Dark Patterns’, these manipulative practices are common on internet platforms and drip pricing, trick questions, nagging, disguised ads, bait and switch, among others, are some of the commonly found dark patterns.“Unlike a regular ad, these are tricky for consumers to make out which is why we need to work closely with the companies so they don’t put out manipulative designs in the first place. The key thing is identification like when a seller sneaks something into the basket or puts up charges that customers did not know existed, it is for consumers to recognise that this is not okay. There is a consumer compromise which is not acceptable,” said Manisha Kapoor, ASCI CEO and secretary general.

While the regulator is seeking voluntary compliance from companies, Kapoor said the body has become far more vigilant on the digital front since more and more of its complaints are coming from the digital medium.

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“For some time, we are increasingly finding greater conversation with the government on these issues. There is a larger government concern on digital ads and the government has a much wider mandate and may be able to look at these cases and decide what action they want to take. These kinds of issues are also why we came up with things like influencer guidelines where influencers don’t inform users what they are looking at is an ad. That is also a kind of a dark pattern. Therefore, this is an overall effort to call that out,” she added.

However, ASCI said that there’s a thin line between dark patterns and legitimate targeting and persuasion tactics. Dark patterns cause consumer harm and with the ever-increasing presence of advertising on digital platforms, these are now under sharp scrutiny of ad-regulators around the world, it said.


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