Today, we are excited to share our new guide that shines a light on how to combat companies using deceptive design to avoid complying with data protection requests. Our guide draws from five years of experience running YourDigitalRights.org and DataBrokersWatch.org, as well as a unique experiment and extensive research. Deceptive design, also known as deceptive patterns or dark patterns, refers to manipulative tactics used by companies through design to make individuals take actions they normally wouldn’t. We have discovered that some companies employ these tactics to dodge data protection requests, which is alarming considering the amount of personal data they hold. In 2022, we conducted an experiment where we sent data deletion requests to 600 data brokers, which revealed various deceptive patterns and allowed us to formulate strategies to combat them. Our efforts have led to improved compliance among data-centric businesses. We have detailed our findings in a recent presentation and hope that our guide proves useful to you.
https://consciousdigital.org/deceptive-design-patterns/