Dark Patterns explained: How e-commerce websites trick you and how to fight back

Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs, Pralhad Joshi, urged all leading online retail platforms to comply with the government’s rules regarding ‘dark patterns’. He warned that failure to adhere to these norms would prompt necessary measures to safeguard consumer welfare.

The minister stated that online retail platforms have been instructed to carry out internal evaluations to identify any use of ‘dark patterns’—a term referring to manipulative design techniques that trick users into taking actions they did not intend.