Deceptive Patterns
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Prevalence and User Perception of Dark Patterns: A Case Study on E-Commerce Websites of Bangladesh

Author
Yasin Sazid, Kazi Sakib
Date
1 Jan 2024
Publisher
International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering
Focus
Industry & Business Models
Category
Academic Scholar

This study examined Bangladeshi e-commerce websites for dark patterns using a combination of automated methods such as GPT-3’s in-context learning and a novel segmentation algorithm, along with manual validation to address any limitations of the automated techniques.

: Dark patterns are deceptive design tactics that impact user decision-making. Such tactics can harm user’s finances, privacy, and lifestyle. Researchers have explored dark patterns from different perspectives in recent times. However, most of the work have been conducted in western countries. As dark patterns involve people and their psychology, explorations in other cultural contexts may generate novel insights. We carried out such a study in the local context of Bangladesh, focusing on the prevalence and user perception of dark patterns. We first examined Bangladeshi e-commerce websites for dark patterns using a combination of automated methods such as GPT-3’s in-context learning and a novel segmentation algorithm, along with manual validation to address any limitations of the automated techniques.