The Department of Consumer Affairs and the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) held consultations with relevant parties on June 13, 2023, over dark patterns. The department also formed a task committee on June 28, 2023. The agency released draft rules on September 7th, based on suggestions made by the working group. In accordance with section 18 of the Consumer Protection Act of 2019, the government published a notice on the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns in the Official Gazette on November 30, 2023. These regulations, which forbid dark pattern activities, would be applicable to any Indian platforms that provide products or services, including merchandisers and advertising. The Center’s suggested guidelines included a list of ten particular dark patterns. Nevertheless, the final rules have raised this figure to 13. Dark patterns, to put it simply, are when people are tricked into doing actions they did not want to undertake, therefore impairing their capacity to form well-informed judgments. Dark patterns work against customers’ interests and erode their judgments by employing misleading patterns that prioritize the platform’s interests over users’ true requests. There is a list of eleven designated dark patterns in the standards’ Annexure 1, which are- false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, forced action, subscription trap, interface interference, bait and switch, drip pricing, disguise advertisement, nagging, trick question, saas billing and rogue malwares.
In response to the DoCA’s guidelines, groups including the Asia Internet Coalition and the Internet Freedom Foundation offered suggestions and important issues. These included suggestions for poor definitions, limiting listing and classification of dark patterns, and regulatory confusion and overlaps.