dark patterns

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

The US data privacy landscape is chaotic. The future of the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act is now decidedly up in the air, and states are passing their own privacy laws in the absence of a federal one, which makes compliance complicated. Federal agencies like the FTC are also trying to fill the data privacy rulemaking void.

The European Parliament adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in July. Although they were passed as one legislative package, they function as two distinct laws. But there is one common thread: Holding Big Tech providers more accountable for what happens on their platforms.

We’re about to see a lot more enforcement against dark patterns from the Federal Trade Commission and on a state level. Holding companies to account for using deceptive language that pushes people into sharing their data has largely fallen to the FTC, but now, US privacy laws are starting to mention dark patterns too.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Spam And Regs Google submitted a proposal to the Federal Election Commission earlier this month for an idea to allow authorized political emails to go directly to Gmail inboxes without the risk of its filters putting the message into spam. Google’s attorney said in […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Julie Rubash, chief privacy counsel at Sourcepoint.  Dark patterns – or website designs that manipulate users into performing specific actions – are widespread these days. In fact, one recent study from Princeton examined 11,000 shopping […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Dark Underbelly You know when the opt-in button is, like, way bigger than the opt-out button, or a checkbox is ticked by default? Those are dark patterns, and regulators are starting to take notice. The Federal Trade Commission held an all-day workshop last week […]

Sens. Mark Warner, D-VA, and Deb Fischer, R-NE, introduced a bipartisan bill on Tuesday that would prohibit large internet companies like Google and Facebook from using deceptive design practices known as “dark patterns” that subtly manipulate users into sharing their personal data. Click here to read the bill in full. Dark patterns enable companies to […]