consumers would have to opt out of rather than into tracking

But what if leadership not only ignores our recommendations but tells us to do something different? I'll never forget one comment. "We're lying to our users," one anguished UX designer told me, explaining that leadership regularly ordered the UX team to create designs that were intentionally misleading. Apparently it helped boost profits.

Recently, WhatsApp updated its privacy policy to allow sharing data with its parent, Facebook. Users who agreed to use WhatsApp under its previous privacy policy had two options: agree to the new policy or be unable to use WhatsApp again. The WhatsApp privacy policy update is a classic bait-and-switch: WhatsApp lured users in with a sleek interface and the impression of privacy, domesticated them to remove their autonomy to migrate, and then backtracked on its previous commitment to privacy with minimal consequence. Each step in this process enabled the next; had user domestication not taken place, it would be easy for most users to switch away with minimal friction.

Having low scores posted for all coworkers to see was “very embarrassing,” said Steph Buja, who recently left her job as a server at a Chili’s in Massachusetts. But that’s not the only way customers — perhaps inadvertently — use the tablets to humiliate waitstaff. One diner at Buja’s Chili’s used Ziosk to comment, “our waitress has small boobs.”According to other servers working in Ziosk environments, this isn’t a rare occurrence.

Systems like Ziosk and Presto allow customers to channel frustrations that would otherwise end up on public platforms like Yelp — which can make or break a restaurant — into a closed system that the restaurant controls.

The only way to insure your posts gain notice is to bombard the feed and hope that some stick, which risks comprising on quality and annoying people.

Many will tease the possibility of going private, posting announcements in their page bios like, “Going private in the next 24 hours,” to entice people to follow while they can.

The other two are where the open web is severely lacking: The seamless integration into one user interface of both reading and writing, making it very easy to respond to others that way, or add to the river of content.

the prevalence of dark patterns online is harmful to people—and has the potential to impact more than just their wallets.

“Dark patterns are being used to undermine privacy, and to rob users of their ability to critically reflect on their actions,” he says. “Design and behavioral science have become weaponized to solely benefit online retailers and to exploit users.”

It can be hard to determine the line between clever marketing and outright deception.

Most dark patterns are design choices, but others are arguably just fraud.

By the way, just to get back to notational bias for a sec, the term “dark pattern” is problematic for reasons that should be clear if you think about it for a minute or two so let’s collectively start working on better language for that. Mmmmkay?

Also, with more design styles and choices, many websites opt to not use an underlining style for an embedded link in text, nor will they use a traditional blue color to indicate an embedded link.

The right to Non-manipulative design.

It disorients the reader, and distracts them with endless, timeless content.