Authored By: Itika Swarnkar
Introduction
Digital commerce has changed not only the way consumers purchase goods and services but also the way in which their choices are presented to them. A consumer may believe that an online decision is entirely voluntary, while the interface through which that decision is made has been deliberately designed to influence the outcome. This phenomenon is commonly described as the use of “dark patterns.” Dark patterns are deceptive or manipulative user-interface practices that can impair a consumer’s autonomy, decision-making and freedom of choice. India’s Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 (“Dark Patterns Guidelines”) recognise this problem and identify thirteen specified dark patterns.[1]
The emergence of dark patterns raises an important legal question: are they genuinely a new form of unfair trade practice, or are they merely technologically sophisticated methods of conducting unfair trade practices that were already recognised by consumer law?
This distinction is important. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 (“CPA 2019”) already defines “unfair trade practice” broadly to include unfair or deceptive practices adopted in connection with the promotion, sale or supply of goods and services.[2] Therefore, the legal harm created by a dark pattern is not necessarily new. What is new is the digital mechanism through which consumer behaviour can be influenced.
This article argues that dark patterns should not be treated as an entirely independent category of legal wrong. Rather, they represent an evolution of existing unfair trade practices into the digital environment. Nevertheless, digital choice architecture creates distinctive problems relating to consumer autonomy, detection, enforcement and rapidly changing technological practices. The 2023 Guidelines are therefore an important regulatory development, but their effectiveness depends upon continuous monitoring, meaningful enforcement and mechanisms capable of addressing new forms of manipulation.
Understanding Dark Patterns
The concept of dark patterns concerns the design of digital interfaces in ways that steer consumers towards decisions that may not reflect their original preferences. The 2023 Guidelines describe a dark pattern as a practice or deceptive design pattern using user-interface or user-experience interactions that mislead or trick users into doing something they did not originally intend or want to do, thereby impairing consumer autonomy, decision-making or choice.[3]
The important element is therefore not merely persuasion. Businesses routinely persuade consumers through advertisements, discounts and product placement, and such persuasion is not automatically unlawful. The concern arises when the design of the digital environment interferes with the consumer’s ability to make an informed and voluntary choice.
For example, basket sneaking occurs where an additional product or service is introduced into the consumer’s transaction without the consumer’s clear consent. Confirm shaming uses guilt or emotionally manipulative language to influence a consumer into accepting an option. Subscription traps make subscribing relatively easy while making cancellation difficult or confusing. Drip pricing involves presenting an initial price and revealing additional charges later in the transaction.[4]
These examples demonstrate that dark patterns do not all produce the same type of harm. Some affect the price ultimately paid, some affect consent, while others affect the ability to exit a transaction. Their common feature is the attempt to influence the consumer’s decision through the architecture of the choice itself.
Academic scholarship has similarly argued that dark patterns exploit cognitive biases and can compromise consumers’ capacity to make free, fair and independent decisions.[5] This makes dark patterns different from a conventional misleading advertisement. The problem may not lie only in what the business tells the consumer, but also in how the consumer is made to choose.
Dark Patterns and the Existing Concept of Unfair Trade Practice
The starting point for examining the legal status of dark patterns in India is Section 2(47) of the CPA 2019. The provision defines “unfair trade practice” as a trade practice which, for promoting the sale, use or supply of goods or provision of services, adopts an unfair method or unfair or deceptive practice. It then identifies several specific practices, including certain forms of false representation and misleading conduct.[6]
This definition is significant because it demonstrates that Indian consumer law did not begin with the 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines. The legal system already recognised the broader problem of businesses using unfair or deceptive methods to influence consumers.
Consider drip pricing. If a consumer is initially attracted by a price that does not transparently communicate the relevant cost and discovers additional charges only later, the issue resembles the traditional consumer-protection concern of misleading price representation. Similarly, basket sneaking raises a basic question of consent: whether the consumer actually chose the additional product or service.
Consequently, it would be inaccurate to argue that dark patterns were completely outside Indian consumer law before 2023.
However, the digital environment introduces a significant complication.
Traditional consumer protection generally focuses upon the content of information provided to consumers. Dark patterns require regulators to consider the design and presentation of choices as well.
For instance, a website may technically provide two options but make one option visually dominant while hiding the other behind several steps. The information may not be literally false. Nevertheless, the design can influence the consumer’s behaviour.
This creates a distinction between:
“Is the information truthful?”
and
“Is the consumer being given a meaningful opportunity to choose?”
The second question is central to the regulation of dark patterns.
III. The 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines: From General Principle to Specific Regulation
The Government’s introduction of the Dark Patterns Guidelines in 2023 represents an attempt to address this digital dimension of consumer protection. The Guidelines apply to platforms systematically offering goods or services in India, advertisers and sellers. They also provide that no person, including a platform, shall engage in a dark pattern.[7]
The Guidelines initially identify thirteen specified dark patterns, including false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, forced action, subscription trap, interface interference, bait and switch, drip pricing, disguised advertisements, nagging, trick wording, SaaS billing and rogue malware.[8]
This development has two major advantages.
First, it provides regulatory clarity. Instead of requiring every consumer or regulator to construct a completely new argument whenever a manipulative digital interface appears, the Guidelines provide recognised categories.
Second, the Guidelines acknowledge that consumer protection involves more than preventing outright falsehoods. A digital interface itself can become the instrument of unfairness.
However, the Guidelines also create an important question: can a list of specified patterns keep pace with technological innovation?
Digital platforms continuously experiment with interface design. A manipulative technique developed tomorrow may not resemble precisely any of the thirteen existing categories. The Guidelines do allow the CCPA to specify other dark patterns from time to time,[9] but this still raises questions about regulatory speed.
If regulation responds only after a particular design becomes widespread, businesses may remain ahead of the regulator.
Therefore, the real challenge is not merely identifying dark patterns. It is creating a regulatory approach that can respond to evolving forms of digital manipulation.
Consumer Autonomy: The Distinctive Harm Caused by Dark Patterns
The strongest argument for treating dark patterns as a distinct regulatory concern lies in the concept of consumer autonomy.
A consumer may technically click “I agree,” purchase a product or subscribe to a service. But the fact that the consumer performed the final action does not necessarily establish that the decision was completely independent.
Dark patterns operate precisely at this stage.
A consumer might be shown:
“Yes, I want the discount.”
while the alternative is framed as:
“No, I prefer to pay more.”
The second option has not disappeared. The consumer can still select it. Yet the design attempts to attach a psychological cost to refusing.
Similarly, a subscription may be accepted in one click but require several confusing stages to cancel. In such circumstances, the problem is not simply a lack of information. It is the asymmetry created by the design of the consumer’s choices.
Brenncke’s analysis of online choice architectures is particularly relevant here because it examines dark patterns in terms of behavioural exploitation and violations of consumer autonomy.[10]
This suggests that Indian consumer law must increasingly consider not merely whether consumers receive information but whether the digital environment allows them to exercise meaningful choice.
At the same time, this does not mean that every persuasive interface should be prohibited. If every influence on consumer behaviour were considered unlawful, ordinary advertising, product recommendations and user-friendly design could potentially be treated with suspicion.
The appropriate legal boundary should therefore be between legitimate persuasion and manipulative interference with consumer choice.
This boundary is one of the most difficult questions in dark-pattern regulation.
From Regulation to Enforcement: The Role of the CCPA
The effectiveness of any regulatory framework ultimately depends upon enforcement. The Central Consumer Protection Authority (“CCPA”) plays a central role in implementing India’s consumer-protection framework.
The CCPA’s current orders demonstrate that dark patterns have moved beyond theoretical discussion. Its orders page records matters concerning dark patterns involving McAfee Software India Private Limited, PhysicsWallah Limited and SpiceJet Ltd. in 2026.[11]
This development is significant because it demonstrates that the 2023 Guidelines are being used within actual regulatory enforcement rather than existing merely as policy guidance.
An earlier Indian consumer-law development is also noteworthy. In Ashwani Chawla v. Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd., the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Chandigarh considered issues including unfair trade practices and explicitly applied the 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines. Academic commentary describes the decision as one of the first Indian consumer-law judgments to expressly apply the Guidelines.[12]
The importance of such developments lies in the gradual creation of Indian dark-pattern jurisprudence.
However, enforcement alone does not establish that regulation is effective.
The continued appearance of dark-pattern matters raises a more difficult question:
Does continuing enforcement demonstrate that the regulatory framework is working, or does it demonstrate that businesses continue to find commercial value in manipulative design?
There is no simple answer. Regulatory action can itself be evidence that enforcement mechanisms are functioning. At the same time, repeated violations may suggest that compliance requires stronger preventive mechanisms.
Therefore, the success of the Guidelines should not be measured merely by the number of orders issued. It should also be assessed by whether businesses actually change their digital practices.
The Problem of Self-Auditing
An especially interesting development occurred in 2025.
On June 5, 2025, the CCPA issued an advisory requesting e-commerce platforms to conduct self-audits to detect dark patterns and take necessary steps to eliminate them. The advisory also encouraged platforms to submit self-declarations based on their audits.[13]
Self-auditing has an obvious advantage. Platforms understand their own interface architecture and can identify and correct problematic designs faster than an external regulator may be able to.
Nevertheless, self-regulation creates a structural concern.
The same businesses conducting the audit may also benefit commercially from increased purchases, subscriptions or consumer engagement.
This does not mean that self-audits are inherently ineffective. Rather, it suggests that self-auditing should perhaps operate as a complement to regulatory oversight rather than a substitute for it.
For large platforms with significant consumer reach, independent verification could provide an additional safeguard. Such a system would preserve the efficiency of internal compliance while reducing the possibility that a business’s commercial incentives influence its assessment.
VII. Are Dark Patterns Really “New” Unfair Trade Practices?
The central question can now be answered more precisely.
Dark patterns are new in their technological expression, but they are not necessarily new in their underlying legal character.
Basket sneaking can involve an unfair transaction.
Drip pricing can involve misleading price presentation.
Subscription traps can undermine meaningful consumer choice.
Confirm shaming can manipulate the consumer’s decision.
These harms can often be connected to existing principles of unfair trade practices and consumer rights.
The 2023 Guidelines therefore appear less like the creation of an entirely new legal wrong and more like the adaptation of existing consumer-protection principles to a new digital environment.
Yet describing dark patterns as merely “old unfair trade practices in new clothes” would also be incomplete.
The digital environment permits manipulation at a scale and speed that traditional commercial practices could not achieve in the same manner. Algorithms can personalise interfaces, consumer decisions can be tracked continuously, and digital transactions can be completed almost instantaneously.
Therefore, the better legal position is a middle one:
Dark patterns do not necessarily constitute an entirely new category of unfair trade practice, but they constitute a technologically distinct mode of consumer manipulation requiring specialised regulatory treatment.
This distinction is important because it avoids unnecessary fragmentation of consumer law while recognising the particular characteristics of digital markets.
VIII. Suggestions and Way Forward
Periodic revision of the Guidelines
The CCPA should periodically review the list and definitions of dark patterns. Regulation should be sufficiently flexible to address new forms of manipulative design without requiring a completely new legislative process for every technological development.
Independent verification of high-risk platforms
Self-audits should be retained but supplemented, where appropriate, by independent verification. This would be particularly relevant for platforms with large consumer bases or business models heavily dependent upon subscriptions and recurring payments.
Greater focus on meaningful choice
Regulators should evaluate not only whether a consumer technically had an option but also whether the option was presented in a reasonably understandable and accessible manner.
Consumer awareness
Consumers should be made aware of common dark patterns. Legal protection becomes considerably stronger when consumers can recognise manipulative interfaces and report them.
Proportionate enforcement
Enforcement should focus not merely on punishment after harm occurs but on preventing repeated practices. Corrective directions, compliance monitoring and proportionate penalties should work together.
Conclusion
Dark patterns represent one of the clearest examples of how digital technology is challenging traditional assumptions of consumer protection. The central difficulty is no longer limited to whether a business has supplied false information. It increasingly concerns whether the consumer has been placed in a digital environment designed to manipulate the exercise of choice.
India has responded through the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023, CCPA advisories and subsequent enforcement. These measures demonstrate that the legal system is already capable of addressing significant aspects of dark-pattern conduct.[14]
Therefore, dark patterns should not be described as an entirely new category of unfair trade practice. The underlying legal concerns—deception, unfairness, lack of informed choice and consumer disadvantage—largely predate digital commerce. What is new is the architecture through which those harms can be produced.
The future of Indian consumer law should consequently not be based merely on creating more categories of prohibited conduct. It should focus on ensuring that existing principles remain capable of protecting genuine consumer autonomy in an increasingly algorithmic marketplace. The real test of dark-pattern regulation will not be how many practices can be listed, but whether consumers can make meaningful choices without being manipulated by the design of the digital environment itself.
Reference(S):
[1] Central Consumer Protection Authority, The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, Gazette of India, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, cl. 2(e) & Annexure I. The official CCPA website lists the Guidelines as the applicable 2023 instrument.
[2] Consumer Protection Act, 2019, No. 35 of 2019, § 2(47), India Code.
[3] Central Consumer Protection Authority, The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, supra note 1.
[4] Id. annexure I; Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Press Release on Dark Patterns, listing the thirteen specified dark patterns.
[5] Sandeep Sharma J. & Ishita Sharma, Dark Patterns in a Bright World: An Analysis of the Indian Consumer Legal Architecture, 11 Int’l J. Consumer L. & Prac. (2023).
[6] Consumer Protection Act, 2019, supra note 2, § 2(47).
[7] Central Consumer Protection Authority, The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023, supra note 1, cls. 3–4.
[8] Id. annexure I.
[9] Id. cl. 2(i) (recognising specified dark patterns and permitting the CCPA to specify other dark patterns).
[10] M. Brenncke, A Theory of Exploitation for Consumer Law: Online Choice Architectures, Dark Patterns, and Autonomy Violations, 47 J. Consumer Pol’y 127 (2024).
[11] Central Consumer Protection Authority, Orders Issued, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution (listing the PhysicsWallah order dated June 1, 2026; McAfee order dated May 20, 2026; and SpiceJet order dated July 14, 2026).
[12] Shouvik K. Guha & Sanchari Roy, Ashwani Chawla v. Flipkart Internet Private Ltd.: Formal Recognition of Dark Pattern Prevention and Regulation Guidelines, 12 Int’l J. Consumer L. & Prac. (2024).
[13] Central Consumer Protection Authority, Advisory on Self-Audit by E-Commerce Platforms for Detecting Dark Patterns, June 5, 2025.
[14] Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, Guidelines and Advisories, Central Consumer Protection Authority (listing the 2023 Dark Patterns Guidelines and 2025 self-audit advisory).
