Dark patterns

Internet

5 rabbit holes · 4 people exploring

Common starting questions

• Why are cookie banners everywhere?
• What's that grid of weird ads at the bottom of every news article?

Rabbit holes

1. the guy who wrote the pop-up ad apologized for it

   Ethan Zuckerman says he wrote the code at Tripod in the late 90s so ads would open in their own window instead of showing up next to content advertisers didn't want to be near. Later he publicly apologized.

   Lou Tremblay · 6 sources

2. why every cookie banner makes 'reject' harder than 'accept'

   Hannah Kim · 6 sources

3. the 'one weird trick' ad grid has a name: the chumbox

   The 'Around the Web' boxes with a weird skin close-up, an old celebrity, and a doctor who hates this one trick. Turns out there's a name and a whole taxonomy for them.

   Dmitri Kuznetsov · 6 sources

4. a UK game shop's terms of service once claimed customers' immortal souls

   April Fools 2010: Gamestation added a clause to its online checkout terms granting it 'your immortal soul.' The point was that nobody reads these, and it worked.

   Noor Rahman · 6 sources

5. dark patterns got their name in 2010

   I knew the examples (prechecked boxes, fake timers, cancellation mazes) but not that someone had been naming and cataloging them since 2010.

   Hannah Kim · 5 sources