Investigator: Fabien Lechevalier

Abstract:
Dark patterns or deceptive patterns could be defined as user interfaces designed or manipulated with the substantial effect of subverting or impairing user autonomy, decision-making or choice as part of its online activities. These techniques are, for example, used to lead users to share ever more personal data, to pay more for products or services, to prevent them from canceling subscriptions or to make it more difficult to exercise their rights, or even impossible. The context of the use of digital services generates decision-making based on System 1 (Kahneman) and heuristics, which is fast and inexpensive in terms of cognitive costs. Beyond the direct consequences visible on an individual scale, these techniques contribute to the reinforcement of generalized behavioral manipulation practices that question our collective relationship to the progress of techniques, when they are not used for humans’ best interests. A deep reflection must be carried out about the digital social contract that we want. The project aims to provide an overview of the regulatory framework governing dark patterns in the US and EU, to identify its shortcomings, and to propose sustainable regulatory solutions that really take human cognitive limits into account. To do this, the project will be carried out in collaboration with Amurabi (a legal innovation agency through design) in order to combine legal, neuro-science and design expertise. Countermeasures based on the principles of “fairness by design” and “user empowerment” will be presented and studied. We call them: Fairpatterns.