More than 40% of consumers in Japan have fallen prey to 'dark pattern' sites: survey

And birthday and new Year cards! And all for the price of an oil change!

And a notification to inform you about the change in the management, with greetings from the new manager (?) trying hard to make you believe that huge autoparts chain store is a mom and pop cake shop.

It’s not the consumer’s fault. Providing misleading information, creating false impression like stocks finishing, or giving the impression of one time payment should all be considered fraudulent acts and should be regulated with heavy penalties for the businesses such as permanently taking away their license and not allowing them to do any type of business ever again.

There are similar issues i have experienced with restaurants. They put menu out, and prices available too. But content is not really clear. You end up getting a very tiny glass of soft drink full of crushed ice for 700 yen. There maybe only a drop of coke in the glass. I suspect even that drop has been mixed with sugary water, not really coke. This should be treated as crime.

Using ones brain is an answer to these and maaaaany other things!

Mr Kipling

   Expect future annoying e-mails, letters and even phone calls in the middle of your day

> And birthday and new Year cards! And all for the price of an oil change!

Just ordered our New Year cards for ¥83 including postage. Great price.

Stefan

We have three computers which don’t function so sometimes I wonder if Apple or Microsoft deliberately doing this so we have to buy a new computers every year

My two desktop Macs are 13 and 11 years old and have worked every day since I installed them.

Expect future annoying e-mails, letters and even phone calls in the middle of your day

And birthday and new Year cards! And all for the price of an oil change!

This seams to be a world wide problem, pop up site come and go very quickly especially around Christmas, the easiest way to combat this is just go to a shop and buy the goods over the counter, if, or when it goes wrong, or you need to exchange it you can, trying to do communicate with companies that only have a online presence is very difficult most of the time, I very really buy anything off the internet especially if I can't see a company address

Another reason why I do not have a smart phone or shop online. On my home computers I get no advertising what ever, but this is maybe because I use TOR and a VPN and Duckduck search. There is only one company worldwide that has my banking details but when ever I use their site I change my password every week, and being a sort of computer freek I have a few more safe guards. But I read recently that only about 20% of computer users have virtually no safe guards on their machines or phones.

There's quite a difference between companies being deceptive (plenty are around) and consumers not paying attention when making a purchase.

I wonder if the influx of internet shopping on a smart phone is contributing to the increase? It can be hard to read text on a smart phone.

just the beginning, soon the digital shakai will take all your freedom and track you anywhere, anytime.

the JGOV is pushing and bribing people to register to MyNumber card to monitor you like in China. wait and see...

I'm not gonna lie. If a freaky-a## digital hand reaches out of my monitor, I'm gon' lose it. I don't think Imma give it my credit card but probably smash his pale blue a## to pieces with a baseball bat! No cap!

We have three computers which don’t function so sometimes I wonder if Apple or Microsoft deliberately doing this so we have to buy a new computers every year

the most commonly experienced was site visitors being asked to register for membership when they only wanted to browse products, at 46.3 percent

逆効果..... this alone makes me leave the store immediately, physical or online.

Go to Yellow Hat and ask for any kind of oil change, upon checking the availability with the mechanics downstairs they automatically give you a form asking your full details, address, phone number, e-mail, shaken dates etc. in order to create your membership card without even asking if you actually want it as if it was a requirement to get the service.

Expect future annoying e-mails, letters and even phone calls in the middle of your day.

Blocked everything and only visit their stores to buy parts and service the car myself.

Many of these operate at the borderline of legality and morality, between smart product promotion and deception. Of course, there are also obvious and illegal scams.

I listen to radio on the way to/from work, and the common advertising pattern is: they present some "great" product, then state a ridiculous price; the host then asks the company representative for a discount, so they generously slash the price to half or so, making it a "great deal" (actually somewhere close to the actual price). The caveat is they (claim to) limit it to first xx people who call, and the offer is valid only within 30 minutes, to prevent people from actually sitting down thinking it through and making a net search. And probably it works as a charm

Examples include unintentionally signing up to subscription-based purchases or feeling inclined to purchase an item due to misleading "limited stock" notices.

This is pretty common on Amazon, so I expect it is unlikely to change and we just have to "not click"

the most commonly experienced was site visitors being asked to register for membership when they only wanted to browse products, at 46.3 percen

Most of tech companies like that now, try to browse X, Instagram or even Linkedin, what so dark about it? It's business.

I'd be interested in seeing numbers for each country. Basically which country falls for this crap the most? I'll bet the Japanese rank up there pretty high. A trusting population that does not mind frivolous time consuming work.

You might have nailed it there. From the article:

46.1 percent of respondents had been swindled by dark patterns, while 68.8 percent said they had seen such designs....

Unbelievable. Internet literacy needs to be a subject in schools.

You see so much of his I’m afraid, it’s legal robbery and i find it incredibly beastly and ghastly

Me thinks, Consent Inc... the web design company bringing these numbers to light, may have hired some of the people behind these "dark pattern" sites. These sites are found in every language all around the world... I'd be interested in seeing numbers for each country. Basically which country falls for this crap the most? I'll bet the Japanese rank up there pretty high. A trusting population that does not mind frivolous time consuming work.

Examples include (1)unintentionally signing up to subscription-based purchases or (2)feeling inclined to purchase an item due to misleading "limited stock" notices.

Among seven examples of dark patterns, the most commonly experienced was site visitors being asked to (3)register for membership when they only wanted to browse products, at 46.3 percent, followed by 43.9 percent who said (4)important information was presented in small fonts.

None of these four examples are examples of “dark patterns” (numbers my addition):

(1)User fault.

(2)User wanted item anyway, but was impatient? User fault.

(3)Don’t use anything that makes you log in or give payments details before searching. User fault.

(4)’Small print’ has been around since Aldus Manutius designed italics in the 15th century. Adjust settings in browser. User fault.

Examples include unintentionally signing up to subscription-based purchases or feeling inclined to purchase an item due to misleading "limited stock" notices.

Looks like most of shopping sites, among them the famous A—z-n.

Nothing dark, just some commercial practices for which customers must be careful.

Recruiting sites also want you to register to see evaluations of companies, other sites do the same….

This article should be more clear in this regard, and the picture has to go!

Agree 100 percent!

This picture and the article are in and of themselves misleading as hell and a "dark pattern" of it's own.

These sites are nothing like what is being described here, and are innocent looking and appealing to the average user. They lure people to their sites with some bait, like a cheap product or something and get them to share their "private" information to continue to browse.

This article should be more clear in this regard, and the picture has to go!