shedding light on the web's dark patterns.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino. Dark patterns are everywhere on the web. These are design tricks that manipulate users in some way and

prompt them to give up information, money, or just more of their time. A recent study from the Federal Trade Commission found

three quarters of all subscription apps and websites use at least one dark

pattern and a majority use multiple such tricks. Here to raise awareness about how

dark patterns work and what we can do to avoid falling prey to them is Yannelli Espinal, she's the host of the show

Financially inclined, which has a new episode all about this topic.

She told me some common dark patterns to be aware of include advertising, that doesn't really look like advertising, online forms that come with

check boxes pre-selected by default, and something called confirm shaming. So this one example I'll give you where I've been online trying to buy something like maybe it's like a flight I'm taking or like I'm booking something and it'll say do you want to add insurance to your booking and I'm like, no, I'm okay, no, I don't want it.

And then the only way I can click no is if I select, no, I'm a moron.

Or like, or like, right? Why would I want to click that but at the same time like if I don't

click it then I'm gonna click yes I want it but I don't want to pay for it and it's like

so frustrating because they make you feel bad when you

don't add things that cost extra money to your cart and that's because they want you

to pause and they want you to maybe change your mind and give them some of your money. So I would imagine we all sort of encounter these things all the time on the internet.

Are there particular kind of people that are particularly at risk here.

Yeah, you know it's funny I think the most common places where you find dark patterns

are going to be shopping online using social media and here's a big one for

younger generations gaming apps.

The kids nowadays I see playing gaming apps all the time on the phone on the iPad

and like I want more swag bucks mommy I want more you know buy me some more of these so I could get myself a new skin in this game you know all of that is like the

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