Union Minister Pralhad Joshi will chair a high-level stakeholder meeting on Wednesday to discuss escalating concerns over dark patterns in major e-commerce platforms.
Major online platforms, including Amazon, Flipkart, Meta, Zomato, Swiggy, Apple, MakeMyTrip, Uber, Paytm and Reliance Retail, alongside representatives from food delivery, pharmacy, travel, cosmetics, apparel and electronics sectors, have been invited to the summit in the national capital.
“The Department of Consumer Affairs, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, in its unwavering commitment to safeguarding consumer rights and promoting fair trade practices, is proactively working to curb the unfair trade practice of dark patterns,” the Ministry stated in a Monday announcement.
The government said the meeting will advocate stricter measures against dark patterns and deliberate penalties for regulatory violations.
A senior government official told Mint that the gathering will also highlight best practices adopted by select companies to protect consumer rights. Industry associations, consumer advocacy groups and law universities will contribute research-backed insights to design more robust compliance systems.
Dark patterns are deceptive design tactics that manipulate users into making decisions they would otherwise avoid and are increasingly used to exploit consumers, often to extract money or personal data.
“These practices erode consumer trust, distort fair market dynamics and pose a serious threat to the integrity of digital commerce,” the Ministry added.
Dark Patterns in E-Commerce
The government has actively monitored e-commerce platforms that employ dark patterns to manipulate or pressure customers into purchases.
In November 2023 the Department of Consumer Affairs issued comprehensive guidelines targeting these deceptive practices, identifying 13 manipulative behaviours. These include false urgency (for example, misleading countdown timers), basket creeping (additional costs stealthily added during checkout), confirm shaming (guilt-tripping users), subscription traps (making cancellations arduous), disguised marketing (ads blended with organic content) and interface interference (obstructing user choices).
These guidelines followed months of stakeholder consultations and were introduced amid growing concerns over exploitative online design tactics used to extract money or personal data from consumers. The rules aim to foster transparency, protect consumer rights and hold businesses accountable for unethical digital practices.
To strengthen its campaign against deceptive practices, the government organised the Dark Patterns Buster Hackathon last year in collaboration with IIT (BHU) Varanasi, inviting innovators to develop software solutions to detect and prevent such tactics. Following the event, three consumer-protection apps were launched on 24 December, India’s National Consumers Day, to empower users against unethical digital strategies.
