Dark patterns are common, sold as plug-ins, and effective in exactly the way that makes them dangerous: the less the customer understands, the better they work.
There’s no bright line between a helpful default and a trap, but there is a reliable test. A good default works because it’s what the customer would choose. A dark pattern works because the customer didn’t notice, didn’t understand or couldn’t find the way out.
In 2019 a Princeton team led by Arunesh Mathur crawled about 53,000 product pages on 11,000 shopping sites and found 1,818 dark patterns on 1,254 sites, about 11%, with 183 sites outright deceptive. They also found 22 third-party companies selling dark patterns to retailers as ready-made plug-ins Published. Many of your store’s tactics weren’t chosen by you. They came with an app.
Regulators found the same. The FTC’s September 2022 staff report, “Bringing Dark Patterns to Light,” described countdown timers with no real deadline, pre-checked boxes and cancellation paths built to wear people down Published. In January 2023 the European Commission and national authorities screened 399 online shops and found 148 using at least one manipulative practice, including fake countdown timers on 42 sites and hidden subscription terms on 23 Published.
Jamie Luguri and Lior Strahilevitz offered a representative sample of 1,963 Americans a paid “data protection” plan. With a plain offer, 11.3% accepted. With mild dark patterns, 25.8%. With aggressive ones, 41.9% Published.
A second study compared tactics. Hidden information, trick questions and obstruction were the most effective. Loaded language and social proof worked moderately. And “must act now” messages “did not make consumers more likely to purchase a costly service” Published. Keep that in mind for chapter 12.
If an option sells better the less clearly you explain it, it’s selling confusion.
| Pattern | What it looks like in DTC | The honest version |
|---|---|---|
| Sneaking into the basket | A paid add-on already in the cart | Unticked, one line of value |
| Preselection against interest | Subscription or fastest cadence ticked, terms hidden | Terms beside the button |
| Hard to cancel | Cancel by phone only, or behind a login maze | Cancel the way you signed up |
| Confirmshaming | “No thanks, I don’t like saving money” | “No thanks” |
| Hidden information | Ongoing price in gray small print | Same size and place as the intro price |
| False urgency | Timers that reset, stock that never falls | Real dates and real stock |
The largest dark-patterns case so far is about a default. In June 2023 the FTC sued Amazon, alleging it enrolled customers in Prime without consent and made canceling hard: buying without Prime was harder to find, and some purchase buttons didn’t clearly say they also joined Prime. The FTC’s announcement noted press reports that Amazon called its cancellation process “Iliad,” read as an allusion to Homer’s poem of “twenty-four books and nearly 16,000 lines” Filed.
On September 25, 2025, Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion: a $1 billion civil penalty and $1.5 billion in refunds to about 35 million customers. It didn’t admit wrongdoing. It agreed to a clear button to decline Prime, which can’t say “No, I don’t want Free Shipping,” clear disclosure of cost, billing dates and renewal, cancellation through the same method used to sign up, and a third-party supervisor for the refunds Filed. By September 2026 it had paid out more than $845 million, and the court had approved raising the cap to $200 per customer Filed.
The FTC quoted an Amazon document calling subscription driving “a bit of a shady world” Filed. Every tactic in the complaint is available to a Shopify store with the right apps.
This is one chapter of The Free Choice, which is free and readable in full on a single page with no form in front of it.