“It would be conservative to say that dark patterns cost New Zealanders millions,” he said.
“Unfortunately, these tactics often fall into a legal grey area – exposing a major regulatory gap.”
The impact of these patterns is widely felt, with 93% of New Zealanders saying they had encountered scarcity cues like “only three tickets left at this price”, while three out of four people had discovered hidden fees at the checkout.
“Dark patterns are omnipresent with the online shopping experience,” Schulz said.
“To mitigate the threats posed by dark patterns, we’d like to see prioritisation of a general ban on unfair trading and strengthening of our privacy laws. New Zealand is currently unchecked and unregulated, and it’s New Zealanders who are paying the price.”
Consumer NZ said dark patterns may drive a business’ short-term profits or boost data collection, but they erode long-term trust with customers.
A recent case study asked research participants to cancel a HelloFresh subscription.
The five-step process took several minutes to complete, and participants encountered a variety of dark patterns along the way.
One person told Consumer trying to unsubscribe was such a woeful experience, she wouldn’t touch the business again with a barge pole.
“Given how frustrating it can be to cancel a subscription like HelloFresh, we weren’t surprised to find that one-quarter of New Zealanders kept a subscription longer than they intended to because of a dark pattern,” Schulz said.
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