How defaults work (front matter, chapters 2 to 4)

• Eric J. Johnson and Daniel G. Goldstein. “Do Defaults Save Lives?” Science 302(5649): 1338–1339, 2003. Full text.
• Brigitte C. Madrian and Dennis F. Shea. “The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401(k) Participation and Savings Behavior.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(4): 1149–1187, 2001.
• Jon M. Jachimowicz, Shannon Duncan, Elke U. Weber and Eric J. Johnson. “When and why defaults influence decisions: a meta-analysis of default effects.” Behavioural Public Policy 3(2): 159–186, 2019.
• Stephanie Mertens, Mario Herberz, Ulf J. J. Hahnel and Tobias Brosch. “The effectiveness of nudging: A meta-analysis of choice architecture interventions across behavioral domains.” PNAS 119(1), 2022.
• Maximilian Maier, František Bartoš, T. D. Stanley, David R. Shanks, Adam J. L. Harris and Eric-Jan Wagenmakers. “No evidence for nudging after adjusting for publication bias.” PNAS 119(31), 2022.
• Stefano DellaVigna and Elizabeth Linos. “RCTs to Scale: Comprehensive Evidence from Two Nudge Units.” Econometrica 90(1), 2022.
• Felix Ebeling and Sebastian Lotz. “Domestic uptake of green energy promoted by opt-out tariffs.” Nature Climate Change 5: 868–871, 2015.
• Kareem Haggag and Giovanni Paci. “Default Tips.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 6(3): 1–19, 2014.
• Klaus M. Miller, Navdeep S. Sahni and Avner Strulov-Shlain. “Sophisticated Consumers with Inertia.” Working paper, January 22, 2026.
• Liran Einav, Benjamin Klopack and Neale Mahoney. “Selling Subscriptions.” American Economic Review 115(5): 1650–71, 2025.

The stack (chapters 5 to 8)

• Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act, 15 U.S.C. § 8403, 2010.
• California Business and Professions Code § 17602, as amended by AB 2863 (2024), for contracts from July 1, 2025.
• Minnesota Statutes § 325G.58. Kelley Drye, “Auto-Renewal Laws: 2025 Round-Up”.
• Directive 2011/83/EU (Consumer Rights Directive), Article 22.
• Competition and Markets Authority. “CMA orders Marks Electrical to refund customers over pre-selected extra charges,” June 18, 2026.
• Federal Trade Commission. CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business.
• Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Recital 32. Court of Justice of the EU, Case C-673/17, Planet49, October 1, 2019.
• 47 C.F.R. § 64.1200 (Telephone Consumer Protection Act rules).
• Stripe. Dispute and fraud card monitoring programs, read September 2026; pricing (dispute fees).

The line and the rules (chapters 9 and 10)

• Arunesh Mathur, Gunes Acar, Michael J. Friedman, Elena Lucherini, Jonathan Mayer, Marshini Chetty and Arvind Narayanan. “Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 3 (CSCW), 2019.
• Jamie Luguri and Lior Jacob Strahilevitz. “Shining a Light on Dark Patterns.” Journal of Legal Analysis 13(1): 43–109, 2021.
• Federal Trade Commission. “Bringing Dark Patterns to Light,” staff report, September 15, 2022.
• European Commission. “Manipulative online practices found on 148 out of 399 online shops screened,” January 30, 2023.
• Federal Trade Commission. Complaint announcement, FTC v. Amazon.com, June 21, 2023; $2.5 billion settlement, September 25, 2025; additional payments, September 17, 2026.
• Custom Communications, Inc. v. FTC (8th Cir. July 8, 2025); Gibson Dunn summary. FTC, Negative Option Rule page, read September 2026.
• Federal Trade Commission. Guides Against Deceptive Pricing, 16 C.F.R. § 233.1; final rule on fake reviews and testimonials, August 14, 2024.
• Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20. Department for Business and Trade, government response on the subscription contracts regime, April 2, 2026.
• Directive 2005/29/EC (Unfair Commercial Practices), Annex I. Directive (EU) 2019/2161, Article 2 (new Article 6a of Directive 98/6/EC).

Words and clocks (chapters 11 to 13)

• Jack W. Brehm. A Theory of Psychological Reactance. Academic Press, 1966.
• Zixi Li and Jingyuan Shi. “Message effects on psychological reactance: meta-analyses.” Human Communication Research 52(1): 38–52, 2026.
• Christopher J. Carpenter. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of the ‘But You Are Free’ Compliance-Gaining Technique.” Communication Studies 64(1): 6–17, 2013.
• Adrien Alejandro Fillon, Lionel Souchet, Alexandre Pascual and Fabien Girandola. “The effectiveness of the ‘But-you-are-free’ technique: Meta-analysis and re-examination of the technique.” Meta-Psychology 7, 2023.
• Stephen Worchel, Jerry Lee and Akanbi Adewole. “Effects of supply and demand on ratings of object value.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32(5): 906–914, 1975.
• Competition and Markets Authority. “Court endorses CMA action as Emma Sleep agrees to change sales practices,” May 28, 2026.
• Suzanne B. Shu and Ayelet Gneezy. “Procrastination of Enjoyable Experiences.” Journal of Marketing Research 47(5): 933–944, 2010.