I appreciate the dark pattern enumeration here - but, as an American, I find it strange that the Australian Government needs to get involved with this PSA.
I appreciate the dark pattern enumeration here - but, as an American, I find it strange that the Australian Government needs to get involved with this PSA.
As a fellow American, wouldn’t it be similar to the FDA putting out a PSA about what baby formula should be avoided?[1] Or warning of the dangers of benzone contamination in sunscreen?[2] Or the CFPB putting out a PSA on responsible credit card practices?
Seems like we have government PSAs too if I’m understanding the comment correctly.
[1] https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-informatio...
[2] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/understanding-over-counter-medicin...
It would be similar to your local state's attorney general, since this is from a state government in Australia. NSW has a similar population to Washington State, for example.
> This page describes common dark patterns you will encounter online, so you can identify and avoid them when shopping online.
I don't know about it being from the Attorney General but that seems like something Washington's government might want to announce to the state's residents.
What I put in my mind and what I put in my body should not be regulated in the same way. I definitely want the FDA to monitor food and drugs and prevent me from getting sick.
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Australia has infamously robust consumer protection laws. Because of the high cost of running a business in Australia, especially one that involves physical goods, Australians are buying ever more things from overseas over the Internet, which means more exposure to retailers and subscription services that have no Australian presence and therefore can't be subjected to Australian law.
Australian governments also take a very paternalistic approach to dealing with their citizens. This stems from Australia's history as a set of penal colonies.
> Australia has infamously robust consumer protection laws.
Infamous if you are a USA business looking to enter Australia, maybe? I have seen some hilarious examples of what overseas companies expecting to be able to treat Australian customers the same was they treat USA citizens, like the top half http://www.hp.com.au loudly proclaiming they do NOT honour their warranties. (Well, as the link to the ACCC explained, they did, but only if you battled your way through a thicket of dark patterns.) But, after the lesson is learned, major foreign companies do seem honour the letter of their warranties in Australia. It must suck to be one of their customers outside of Australia.
Bupa appears to be in the process of learning the same lesson, after a decade of being pricks to deal with. I'm with them. Not by choice. My USA employer pays for health insurance, and that's what they give you. It saves me 1000's a year, but OMG, Bupa make repeated mistakes that are always in their favour, they don't respond when it's pointed out, when they are forced to respond because of repeated phone calls they outright lie. It took me 3 months to get $200 out of them. I did it out of spite in the end, because the $200 wasn't worth the amount of time they made me spend. And now, surprise, surprise: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/bupa-in-court-for-unco...
> which means more exposure to retailers and subscription services that have no Australian presence and therefore can't be subjected to Australian law
Yep. I was one of them. I did that, and then got bitten, over and over again. Now one of the first things I look for in a company I'm buying off is "do they have an ABN (Australia Business Number" (It's a tax ID.) If they do, they are subject to Australia law, and the risk is at a level I find acceptable. If they don't it's a complete lottery. Even for cheap things. It's not just the lost money, it's the time you waste in dealing with these people, the days of correspondence before you realise they aren't acting in good faith. You then re-order somewhere local, but now you've lost weeks. It's why I buy domains through an Australia mob like https://ventraip.com.au/. Yes I've found foreign companies that have provided me the same, if not better service at a better price. But if every case, that small foreign firm got bought out by some bigger company, and I found myself in dark pattern hell.
There are exceptions of course. Sites like amazon, ebay and alibaba enforce very similar rules on the suppliers they allow onto their platforms. But outside of those platforms, if I have to deal with a company outside of Australia, the first question I ask myself is "am I prepared to throw this money away if it all goes sour". It's not a question I bother asking myself when dealing with an Australia company.
Nothing about this is regional to Australia. Every government should put out this kind of PSA. Dark patterns make everything worse in the long term for short term gain.
New South Wales Government, not Australia. So even more strange, because I doubt NSW could do much re the Australian Consumer Law.
Funnily, it never states it's New South Wales. Even on the "About NSW" page, NSW is never written out.
It's a good point. Everyone living in Australia knows what "NSW" means, and it's a website that's almost always only used by people living in the state. Except for a page on dark patterns :)
Same blindspot as Americans using two-letter codes for their states (AZ etc.), or any other country's inhabitants using locally-known place names, or not adding their country after it.
Haha, how curious.
Googling '"new south wales" site:www.nsw.gov.au', some pages have it apparently written out in full, but clicking through to the e.g. "State Flag" page, they've updated the page to say "NSW"!
Right; if they want to get involved, they should go all the way and start fining the hell out of them.
Australia is a nanny state. They will attempt to regulate these dark patterns next.
A "nanny state" is a government that stops YOU from doing something (which Australia does a lot by Western standards). But what you're describing is market regulation.
GOOD!
These NEED to be regulated HEAVILY.
Dark patterns make everything worse, there is no valid reason to use them. NONE.
Short term gains from such patterns do not offset the harms these patterns cause.
the market learns, then judges you
and that would be bad?
"Was I born too late for the golden days of my nanny state"