Deceptive Patterns
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Care2: Requires action to opt out of mailing lists when confirming signature

Author
Dark Patterns Tip Line
Date
8 Mar 2022

“Second page when you sign a petition asks you to “confirm” your signature; if you do not actively *uncheck* an already-checked box, you have just added yourself to one or a bunch of mailing lists. So, the pre-check masquerades as an opt-in, but effectively you need to take an action to opt out.”

Care2 was reported to the Deceptive Design Tip Line over how it adds petition signers to mailing lists. According to the report, the second page when signing a petition asks the user to “confirm” their signature, and unless they actively uncheck an already-checked box they are added to one or more mailing lists. The reporter notes that the pre-checked box masquerades as an opt-in, when in effect the user must take an action to opt out.