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Sneaky user interfaces, such as unwanted bundleware default checkboxes are now expanding into digital newspaper subscriptions. The Boston Globe's site uses lightly-colored close buttons and increases the price as the user goes through the sales process, as well as includes some newsletter-signup defaults. These dishonest-by-design interface elements that are intended to trick or obfuscate users are called dark patterns.
What are some of the most egregious examples you have seen? Have you even been asked to implement a design you found morally distasteful?
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Sneaky Sales and Pricing Practices Online
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
-- H. L. Mencken
(Score: 5, Informative) by anubi on Tuesday April 26 2016, @07:11AM
Many businesses have just plain gotten sneaky. You have to be very careful, and often then its not enough. YOU may catch and correct the checkbox, but they may not honor your denial and do it anyway, knowing that as a business, they can always use the "hold harmless" clause.
The internet is not a safe place, and trust is hard to come by. I would even venture as far as to say most internet businesses are banking on the one-time visit; that if they can convince you to do business with them just once, that's good enough, as there are millions of us out here, and even if they leave a sour trail, they can always change their name and make the rounds again... just like the old traveling snake-oil salesmen of my grandpa's day who would travel the old country roads - town to town - selling useless medicines often made from turpentine, weeds, and moonshine leftovers.
Getting a good copy of public domain software is getting to be a trick these days as many webmasters are mastering the art of using JavaScript to download, force feeding users to accept a live download without being able to get a copy for inspection first. I always want to get a copy of an install package first and MD5 and SHA it for my own peace of mind before executing it. If I as much as submit to Google an MD5 of the file in question, they can usually tell me if either some virus research company has "blessed" it or if it has left a bunch of people in the wake of a mess of problems.
Webmasters with evil intent will use JavaScript to force the issue with their "installers". One really has to have a lot of either faith or gullibility to drop their pants for this. Once you have instructed your machine to accept their insert, no telling what they put in the pipe. Its like signing a blank check.
Wasn't it even our own SourceForge which sold out to the Business-Men of the JavaScript? [howtogeek.com]
We have internet shysters today just as grandpa had snake oil salesmen, however the internet has enabled people to build up a reputation pretty fast. The *one* thing that every shyster I have run across on the net will use JavaScript to enforce his insistence that I not know what he's going to do until he has done it - and even then he may have implanted a time delay bug, keylogger, or some other monitoring app in my machine I will not ever know about.
For me, personally, the non-transparency of what JavaScript is doing in my machine has gotten so bad that when even legit merchants use the same techniques the evil webmasters use, they too become untrusted and I am very loathe to do business that way. There are still a lot of businesses that will ask me to turn my machine over to them because they can code it in a script - now how uneasy would they feel if I also demanded access to their machine likewise? Would they feel uneasy if I brought a bunch of kids into their store ( hold harmless! You can't touch a kid! ) and they headed straight for his cash register and wanted to count the money in it, even if they didn't take any? Even if I had them wear cute little pullovers with an image of a cup of coffee embroidered on the front? I betcha they would not want to do business if I did something like that.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Justin Case on Tuesday April 26 2016, @12:39PM
If it is a significant, reputable software package it probably has a wikipedia page. From there, follow the link to the origin of the software.
And yeah, if you encounter mandatory JavaShit anywhere, you're either dealing with a crook or an idiot. Either way, move along, nothing to see here.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by halcyon1234 on Tuesday April 26 2016, @01:20PM
Counterpoint: The wikipage can be both deceiving and enlightening. Take CDEX for example. A simple, lightweight CD burner I've used for years. (Still have a CD player in car, blah, blah, whatever). So I'm on a new computer, and want to make a CD. I can't remember the download site. Search for CDEX takes me to some download-ware sites. Not enthused. Check Wikipedia for the actual link, and...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDex [wikipedia.org]
Find out the company's been bought out by a scummy bundle-corp who is installing adware/malware bundled with the latest (now closed source) binary. (There's been some editing on the page since, but it's in the history)
Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Tuesday April 26 2016, @09:09PM
SourceForge was recently purchased by a company from Dice. They said the first thing they wanted to do was get rid of the crapped up downloads and start rebuilding trust. Whiplash on ./ has posted some about their plan.