{"title":"The collective welfare dimension of dark patterns regulation","authors":"Fabiana Di Porto, Alexander Egberts","doi":"10.1111/eulj.12478","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Dark Patterns are interface design elements that can influence users' behaviour in digital environments. They can cause harm, not only on an individual but also a collective level, by creating behavioral market failures, reducing trust in markets and promoting unfair competition and data dominance. We contend that these collective effects of Dark Patterns cannot be tackled by existent laws, and thus call for policy intervention. This article reviews how existing and proposed laws in Europe and the US, namely the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act as well as the U.S. DETOUR and AICO Acts, address these collective dimensions of welfare and add to existing protection. We find that the novel legislative measures attain that goal to varying degrees. However, the collective welfare perspective may prove useful to both support a risk-based approach to the enforcement and provide guidance as to which practices should be addressed as priority.</p>","PeriodicalId":47166,"journal":{"name":"European Law Journal","volume":"29 1-2","pages":"114-141"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eulj.12478","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Law Journal","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eulj.12478","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"LAW","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Dark Patterns are interface design elements that can influence users' behaviour in digital environments. They can cause harm, not only on an individual but also a collective level, by creating behavioral market failures, reducing trust in markets and promoting unfair competition and data dominance. We contend that these collective effects of Dark Patterns cannot be tackled by existent laws, and thus call for policy intervention. This article reviews how existing and proposed laws in Europe and the US, namely the EU Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act as well as the U.S. DETOUR and AICO Acts, address these collective dimensions of welfare and add to existing protection. We find that the novel legislative measures attain that goal to varying degrees. However, the collective welfare perspective may prove useful to both support a risk-based approach to the enforcement and provide guidance as to which practices should be addressed as priority.
期刊介绍:
The European Law Journal represents an authoritative new approach to the study of European Law, developed specifically to express and develop the study and understanding of European law in its social, cultural, political and economic context. It has a highly reputed board of editors. The journal fills a major gap in the current literature on all issues of European law, and is essential reading for anyone studying or practising EU law and its diverse impact on the environment, national legal systems, local government, economic organizations, and European citizens. As well as focusing on the European Union, the journal also examines the national legal systems of countries in Western, Central and Eastern Europe and relations between Europe and other parts of the world, particularly the United States, Japan, China, India, Mercosur and developing countries. The journal is published in English but is dedicated to publishing native language articles and has a dedicated translation fund available for this purpose. It is a refereed journal.