A fantastic report by the Norwegian Consumer Council that explains how tech companies use dark patterns to discourage us from
exercising our rights to privacy. Facebook, Google and
Windows 10 are named and shamed.
"One particular moment that fueled all this criticism was when Microsoft changed the behavior of the X button in the Get Windows 10 app, as clicking this button no longer canceled the upgrade, but ignored the setting and prepared the install in the background."
Qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM)
Despite the user already having chosen their preferred web browser and search engine, Microsoft forces users to consider switching to Edge and Bing. If the user is not paying attention, they may mistakenly opt in to this change.
Very @darkpatterns example by @Microsoft? What are my options here? "Accept optional data..." as opposed to "Yes send optional data...". I wish not to send anything. Which option should I choose?
@Microsoft please don't auto-select "contact me with promotional offers" after I deselected it and then navigated to select my region. It's unbecoming of what is otherwise a very good company.
The Windows icon should bring you to the Windows update menu and let you select updates. Instead it takes you to the Windows update menu and you have to hit check for updates. This never used to be the case you used to be able to just select which updates are going to install.
When an update is available, the user is unable to shutdown or restart their operating system without updating.
Social media platforms repeatedly use so-called dark patterns to nudge you toward giving away more of your data.
Wow, the dark patterns in Windows to keep you on Edge are quite something.
Search bing for Chrome leads to huge banner promo for Edge. Changing the default browser pops up promo for Edge.