Bringing Dark Patterns to Light (FTC Staff Report)
The FTC’s own staff report on dark patterns, drawing on a 2021 public workshop and the agency’s own enforcement actions — real cases the FTC itself brought, not third-party examples.
License: Public domain — U.S. federal government work (17 U.S.C. § 105), the same basis as 2025 Internet Crime Report.
Key points
- Four named categories of dark pattern, each with real FTC enforcement cases: (I) design elements that induce false beliefs (deceptive testimonials, fake “objective” comparison-ranking sites, countdown timers that aren’t real); (II) design elements that hide or delay disclosure of material information (drip pricing, fees buried below the fold or behind unclicked tooltips); (III) design elements that lead to unauthorized charges (deceptive free trials that convert to recurring charges, cancellation flows requiring 6–9 screens to complete); (IV) design elements that obscure or subvert privacy choices (asymmetric-prominence accept/reject toggles, repeated re-prompting after a user declines, confusing double-negative toggle wording).
- Concrete cancellation standard, from ROSCA (the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act): a seller must (1) clearly and conspicuously disclose all material terms before taking billing information, (2) obtain express informed consent — an affirmative, unambiguous act — before charging, and (3) provide a cancellation mechanism at least as easy to use as the one the customer used to sign up.
- Worked example of the “roach motel” problem: the FTC’s case against ABCMouse alleged consumers had to click through 6 to 9 screens to cancel, with no way to skip ahead, and several screens offered unrelated “special offers” that diverted a user out of the cancellation path entirely if clicked instead of “Continue.”
- Worked example of asymmetric-prominence privacy dark patterns: an ISP interface where “Accept” appeared in a bold, blue, button-like treatment while “Reject” appeared in muted grey resembling an inactive control — the report’s own explanation is that this visual asymmetry can lead a user to select Accept “out of expediency” without registering that Reject was a real option.
- General recommendation: any toggle or choice presented to a consumer should not be ambiguous, and no option should be visually more prominent than another when both are legitimate choices.