_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI Amazon fined in Poland for dark pattern design tricks
nborwankar wrote 5 hours 12 min ago:
Slightly unconnected but Iâve found a rather disturbing âdark
patternâ in Amazon sales of food items in CA.
Background: CA requires a warning on food that has some threshold level
of carcinogenic or harmful substance - esp lead and arsenic. Itâs
called CA 65 Warning or a Proposition 65 warning.
I make sure to look for these on the images of labels and ingredients
when I buy food especially ground spices off Amazon.
The dark pattern: Label images show no CA 65 warning but when the food
turns up it has such a warning! I bought bulk powdered cinnamon with
this issue.
Recently I noticed that while Amazon does not show the warning on the
label it has an innocuous small print link in your shopping cart that
leads to the full text of the warning should you notice it and click on
it
This is now in the vicinity of actually increasing the probability of
physical harm. Because of not having the warning in the label AND
having an almost ignorable warning at checkout when you are more
focused on getting things done and move on to the next thing, as
opposed to when you are in a more deliberative state while browsing.
Just want to put that out for folks in CA who might care about such
things. Iâm sure they wouldnât try shtuff like this in EU.
Slow_Hand wrote 4 hours 27 min ago:
My guess is that their product page (which serves the rest of the
country too) doesnât feature the label in itâs image because
itâs not relevant to anyone outside of CA. Perhaps Oregon has
itâs own version of CA 65 with a different warning label, but that
wouldnât be relevant to anyone outside of OR so itâs not
prominent in the product page.
I suppose they could display regional versions of the product page
based on geolocation, but thatâs a huge layer of added complexity
and they may not be legally required to alter their website to
comply.
So Iâd chalk it up to neglect or indifference, rather than a
deliberate dark pattern.
Animats wrote 7 hours 28 min ago:
Strange that Amazon would do this. The original selling point of their
"one-click" system was that it had undo. Everybody else was requiring
lots of confirmation, while Amazon was just click and go, with the
opportunity to undo mistakes.
Amazon has lost that, with their "No, I don't want to buy Prime", "No,
I really don't want to buy Prime", and "QUIT TRYING TO GET ME TO BUY
YOUR PRIME SERVICE" check out system.
akkad33 wrote 8 hours 5 min ago:
There's this fitness app called madmuscles [1] that takes dark patterns
to the extreme. It has to be seen to be believed. I don't know how they
get away with it
URI [1]: https://madmuscles.com/
imwillofficial wrote 9 hours 26 min ago:
I see digital sovereignty of various localities cracking down on big
tech being one of the impending battlefields of the next decade.
zzz999 wrote 9 hours 54 min ago:
Good
croemer wrote 11 hours 2 min ago:
Excellent, consumer protection orgs should do this much more
frequently.
Often they are the only ones with standing to sue in these types of
cases.
spike021 wrote 11 hours 8 min ago:
Can the NYT be next? (In the US of course)
Recently I tried unsubscribing from The Athletic (now owned by NYT).
They use every dark pattern in the book and multiple times also make it
seem like you finally were successful only for no real confirmation
message.
alephknoll wrote 10 hours 58 min ago:
Don't know why you are getting downvoted. NYT and many publishers are
notorious with their dark patterns to keep you around.
The only company that I know of that makes it easier to 'unsubscribe'
than to 'subscribe' is netflix. I couldn't believe how easy it was.
Didn't have to call them and have them guilt trip me into staying. Or
chat with someone or some AI. Just cancel. Though they do email you
deals from time to time. But even then only every few weeks or so.
RajT88 wrote 11 hours 16 min ago:
Nuke subscribe & save from orbit.
jonathankoren wrote 10 hours 48 min ago:
I always love it when it suggests that I should get a subscription to
a durable good.
RajT88 wrote 10 hours 23 min ago:
I enjoy the fine print which says, "your subscription price can
change".
Which of course it does. There is a lot of price fuckery going on,
where they lower it to drive subscriptions and then raise the price
above the average price.
I'm not sure why I'm getting downvoted, because subscribe & save is
obviously a dark pattern along the lines of "entice subscription,
get people to forget about it" only with variable pricing on top of
it.
scyzoryk_xyz wrote 12 hours 58 min ago:
Bizarre. Poland isnât a big market with Amazon, we have our own local
monopoly in this sector called Allegro.
edit: ok this is done by UOKiK, a consumer protection agency. This
agency has supposedly been doing a stellar job keeping an eye on
everything from banking to e-commerce sector.
jakubadamw wrote 12 hours 7 min ago:
I am honestly baffled Amazon hasn't found a way to compete with
Allegro. I am happy about it, but also baffled. Allegro's customer
experience is just stellar, whereas Amazon's interface continues to
give the impression that it's still a bunch of widgets rendered by a
hundred microservices and glued together without any elegant cohesion
in mind. It's as if little has changed since the famous Steve Yegge's
letter.
scyzoryk_xyz wrote 10 hours 54 min ago:
I'm no fan of either - Allegro has Amazon executives and nearly
identical Prime-free shipping strategy. Pretty sure Allegro has the
same effect of monopolizing and driving up prices as Amazon has.
I find the eBay-esque artifact interface absurd. It's likely Amazon
hasn't found a way because an environment that isn't a monopoly
isn't attractive to begin with for that business model.
scotty79 wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
I think Allegro lowers prices because it forces sellers into
common arena where they have no choice but to compete with each
other. It's usually cheaper to buy stuff on Allegro than on
dedicated e-commerce site.
willcipriano wrote 1 hour 52 min ago:
That's how Amazon was until they got enough market share to
start milking sellers for more
slowmotiony wrote 11 hours 55 min ago:
It's even more baffling that Amazon.pl has one of the worst
customer support I've ever seen while Amazon.de is a total opposite
- an increadibly pleasant experience and packages almost always
arrive on the next day.
dehrmann wrote 12 hours 8 min ago:
> stellar
I'm not sure enough to know if that's sarcastic, but the
circumstances make me wonder if this was to promote local competitors
or score political points.
scyzoryk_xyz wrote 11 hours 1 min ago:
No no, I'm serious. I have friends in banking who had experiences
coming under UOKiK scrutiny and they claim that it really has it's
shit together. I have no doubt that there is dysfunction in the
system, just not when it comes to regulation of this sector
apparently.
StefanBatory wrote 12 hours 22 min ago:
Polish Amazon is such in a weird spot.
Compared to Allegro, it has close to no offers, and search engine.
Just. Doesn't. Work.
voytec wrote 7 hours 14 min ago:
amazon.pl doesn't have English version. Auto-translated titles and
descriptions are atrocious.
amazon.de on the other hand has English version and stuff is sent
from warehouses in Poland anyway.
ivanjermakov wrote 8 hours 2 min ago:
Amazon's search in Poland is atrocious. I only get international
offers where shipping costs are higher than good's price. What the
hell?
kolinko wrote 12 hours 18 min ago:
+1. When in Poland I use Allegro all the time - way more reliable
than Amazon.pl. Not as good as Amazon in the states though.
My friends who moved back from the Bay Area still prefer to use
Amazon, but they use Amazon.de instead - similar shipping times,
and much better selection and reliability.
chihuahua wrote 11 hours 1 min ago:
Not sure if this is still the case, but Amazon.de used to use
fulfillment centers in Poland to deliver to Germany. So if you're
in Poland and ordering from Amazon.de, your order could very well
be delivered from Poland to Poland.
gambiting wrote 10 hours 14 min ago:
In fact there were 3 massive Amazon fullfilment centres in
Poland before Amazon.pl even launched lol. It's a weird(but
very interesting) market with its own big players that neither
Amazon nor ebay managed to compete against.
belter wrote 13 hours 12 min ago:
Can Poland please fine the hell of Zoom, for the darkest pattern of
pretending you need to install a client to join a meeting. And only
after a few seconds, show at the end of the page you can join with a
browser?
ivanjermakov wrote 7 hours 59 min ago:
And still, Zoom's "annotate" feature is not available in web version,
although there is absolutely no technical reason for that.
jgwil2 wrote 9 hours 48 min ago:
Hmm, I mean I hate patterns like this but also there are like a
million apps out there that don't have a web client at all (not to
mention the ones that do support web but constantly display popups
saying "x is better in the app"), so it would seem odd to punish Zoom
for this while letting all those other companies carry on.
paulddraper wrote 10 hours 18 min ago:
That seems...excessive.
Being fined for not offering an obvious web-only client.
CGamesPlay wrote 11 hours 11 min ago:
PSA: just click the âopen in appâ link (which wonât do anything
since you donât have the app installed) and the âactually open in
browserâ link will immediately appear.
dixie_land wrote 11 hours 49 min ago:
This chrome extension is a lifesaver:
URI [1]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xoom-redirector/oc...
wackget wrote 12 hours 8 min ago:
Zoom is terrible for this, but it's also sometimes the fault of the
meeting organiser. There's a setting in the Zoom admin panel which
allows admins to enable/disable the option of joining from the
browser (or there used to be, at least).
If you don't see the join from browser link even after jumping
through Zoom's dark pattern hoops, ask the meeting admin to enable
it.
BeetleB wrote 12 hours 46 min ago:
Is this something specific to Poland. I join Zoom calls via a browser
(on a PC) all the time - it was not at all hard to figure out.
itslennysfault wrote 12 hours 33 min ago:
No, just tested it out (in the US). I honestly had no idea there
was a web client at all because of the pattern OP is talking about.
When I clicked the zoom link it opens a browser window and pops up
a system dialog to launch the zoom app. After I hit "cancel" on
that dialog I was on a page with a large "Launch Meeting" button
(and no link to use the web version). Then, I clicked the "Launch
Meeting" button and it opened the same system dialog again. Then,
after I clicked cancel on that dialog a small link appeared at the
bottom that says: "Having issues with Zoom Client? Join from Your
Browser"
Kwpolska wrote 10 hours 50 min ago:
What if you open it in incognito mode? I haven't had to use Zoom
for a while, but last time I did, it would automatically download
an exe/pkg when opening the page.
nolongerthere wrote 11 hours 34 min ago:
Thatâs so interesting, Iâve known about it from the very
beginning of my introduction to zoom, back at the start of the
pandemic when zoom was becoming ubiquitous someone released a
chrome extension to always use the web client.
bmmayer1 wrote 12 hours 57 min ago:
Until this moment I had no earthly idea you could join a Zoom call
from a browser. Good on them for their evil genius design team :-p
nextos wrote 11 hours 12 min ago:
Before it was more evident you could join from your browser.
It's just WebRTC, like Google Meet, Jitsi, etc.
wubrr wrote 11 hours 44 min ago:
I used zoom in browser before using the apps.. and the annoying
dark patterns basically pushed me to avoid zoom whenever I can at
this point.
A lot of these kinds of dark patterns sacrifice long term user
satisfaction and brand reputation for short-term gains in
questionable internal metrics (metrics that are often tied to
bonuses for people who couldn't care less about the long-term
success of the company or its customers).
chihuahua wrote 11 hours 12 min ago:
I do not understand why people think Zoom is so good, and why
companies pay money to use it. The app is so annoying. (At least
on MacOS) it splits everything into many different windows that
end up on different screens and it's so annoying having to scan
all my screens to find the piece of the UI that lets me start
screen sharing. Whenever I join a Zoom meeting from the Calendar,
it first pops open a browser tab, and then that opens the Zoom
app. In the year 2024, why can't it open the Zoom app directly?
Surely one app can start a process to run another app?
erikerikson wrote 10 hours 56 min ago:
I suspect it's two factors. The first is that it's not produced
by a major and statistically we like an underdog. The second is
that they made a video client that actually worked when all the
majors under invested and produced clients with serious issues.
From there, the market is sticky. It has worn a bit though,
hasn't it?
belter wrote 12 hours 38 min ago:
"PSA: Yes you can join a Zoom meeting in the browser" - [1] "Zoom's
forced app is irresponsible" - [2] Shady patterns mean shady
company
URI [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/20/psa-yes-you-can-join-a-z...
URI [2]: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/03/zooms-forced-app-is-irres...
hnbad wrote 13 hours 41 min ago:
It sounds like Amazon (in Poland at least) has been playing it fast and
loose with "eventual consistency" but violated the law by basing
legally binding claims on the unreliable data. Selling goods that are
already out of stock only to then cancel the order later, or indicating
a false time pressure to purchase in order to meet a delivery date,
etc, all sound like they could as well be genuine mistakes. Amazon just
happens to be too big for that to be a valid excuse.
kubanczyk wrote 12 hours 54 min ago:
According to the gov investigator a big part of the "darkness" in
this case were A's terms of service. They moved the moment of
entering the legal sale agreement well after the customer could
expect from their web interaction.
jgeada wrote 13 hours 1 min ago:
Except they do still charge you first before figuring out they won't
actually ship you the goods as promised. It is the charging and then
not delivering that is the problem.
rafram wrote 12 hours 41 min ago:
Do they? In the US, Amazon only actually charges your card once the
items ship. Until then itâs just a pre-authorization.
gambiting wrote 10 hours 3 min ago:
Nope, in Poland(and in UK as well) it charges you immediately,
unless the item is specifically marked as pre-order(like new
unreleased yet games and films - those get charged when they
ship, everything else gets charged the moment of order). I've
ordered a new router from Amazon few weeks ago, it was showing as
"shipping 5th of April" (they were on backorder I guess) but they
charged my card straight away.
chihuahua wrote 10 hours 30 min ago:
It seems bizarre to hear about these problems in Poland. Amazon
had all this stuff figured out a long time ago. Which is why I
order from Amazon all the time - it works reliably, 99.99% of the
time.
And they understand how to properly package things, which is what
I would expect after they've shipped a billions packages over the
past 25+ years. When I order from Target or Vitacost, there's a
25% chance that they throw things in a box, add a single inflated
plastic bag, and ship it. Glass jars arrive smashed, shampoo
bottles crack open and leak over the other items, etc. It's like
day 1 for Amazon's competition in terms of packaging.
fy20 wrote 15 hours 8 min ago:
The part about the countdown clock for delivery dates is interesting.
Amazon is not in my country, but Amazon DE does ship here for not too
much. It's often cheaper and sometimes even quicker to order from
Amazon DE than a local e-retailer (they often don't have items in stock
locally, and need to ship from a warehouse in another country).
I wanted to purchase some items, and it gave the usual "order in the
next 8 hours for delivery on Sunday". I wanted to add some other items
later, and forgot about it. I finally got around to placing the order
two days later. It gave me a delivery date of... the same Sunday.
duxup wrote 10 hours 15 min ago:
It doesn't strike me as particularly unusual for the clock to give
one time, and then a different time later. A lot of factors might go
into making promises and each time they're evaluated variables may be
different.
I might give an ETA for some code, say 3 days, then do something else
and find an easier way to do the task I was asked about earlier, dude
to happenstance or even lower demands on my time ... so that later
when asked again I might give an even even earlier ETA.
Ekaros wrote 11 hours 30 min ago:
For Finland it seems they time their shipping by arrival date. So if
arrival date is bit away, they only ship a few days later. But it
will hit the arrival window.
mdrzn wrote 14 hours 53 min ago:
I've never had any issues with the countdown clock; it's usually for
orders that I want to receive quickly, and it tells me "if you order
within the next 2 hours, it will arrive tomorrow". So, I doubt that
it's a dark pattern (at least in Italy). Then again, if third-party
sellers are using this system as a dark pattern, that's a different
matter.
throw_a_grenade wrote 12 hours 49 min ago:
Polish official release linked in TFA ( [1] ) hints that the
problem with that clock was, it wasn't actually a guarantee,
because Amazon could have just cancelled the order. That it can
just cancel the order based on some technicality (how Amazon
defined conclusion of contract) is also illegal in itself.
URI [1]: https://uokik.gov.pl/31-mln-zl-kary-dla-amazon
Zigurd wrote 13 hours 43 min ago:
I suppose discovery, or even a study of whether the delivery
countdown matters to actual delivery, in a case like this is enough
to categorize it as a dark pattern. If it can be shown to not
matter to actual delivery time, what other purpose does it serve?
arkey wrote 13 hours 45 min ago:
If you, like me, only go to Amazon when you've already decided to
buy a certain thing, then you probably just stay with the "will
arrive tomorrow" part.
However the countdown could add some pressure if you're still
deciding on buying something or not, in the form of "now or never
FOMO".
MatekCopatek wrote 14 hours 5 min ago:
Judging by the parent comment, the dark part is the fact that it
might be fake pressure. As in - it's true that it will arrive
tomorrow if you order within the next 2 hrs, but it will actually
arrive tomorrow even if you take 4 hrs.
BeetleB wrote 12 hours 45 min ago:
The dark pattern is actually the opposite. People who ordered in
the next 2 hours might not get it the next day. If you tell
someone "buy it in the next 2 hours to receive it tomorrow", you
better make sure they get it tomorrow.
tzs wrote 11 hours 33 min ago:
I don't see how that is necessarily a dark pattern. It would be
a dark pattern if they were saying that when they knew it would
not make it in time.
But if most of the time they do make the deadline, and the
times that they do not are caused by problems that arose
unexpectedly after the order was places, it is not a dark
pattern.
lozenge wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
Delivery date is part of the implied contract. They would be
fine if they just called it an estimated delivery time, but
they didn't.
Of course if there was a road closure or something like that
then the consequences would be minimal, but it sounds like
they caught Amazon systematically making promises it can't
keep.
BeetleB wrote 10 hours 28 min ago:
> and the times that they do not are caused by problems that
arose unexpectedly after the order was places, it is not a
dark pattern
I think the contention here is that they intentionally
overcommitted. One would have to see the statistics on how
often they miss the promised timeline.
mdrzn wrote 13 hours 32 min ago:
I mean usually the cut-off time is to "order by 8 PM to get the
product delivered the next day". I'm not convinced that setting
the order deadline at 8 PM instead of 10 PM significantly boosts
sales. E-commerce platforms are full of dark patterns, but on
Amazon (perhaps because I go there when I already know what I
want to buy), I haven't noticed many. Another potential dark
pattern is that the lowest price is shown for offers with Prime
included, while sometimes there are lower prices available for
the same product shipped without Prime. However, even in this
case, I don't have any complaints. Not defending Amazon
obviously, but since I pay for Prime, I definitely want the
fastest shipment possible.
aendruk wrote 13 hours 43 min ago:
Isnât the explanation just that delivery estimates have a wide
margin of error? To guarantee delivery by a target date the order
must be placed by the beginning of the margin, but if you order
within the margin thereâs some probability of getting that date
by chance.
To explain the two estimates days apart both returning the same
Sunday, consider that the week is heterogeneous; maybe some
regional hop is available specifically on Saturday regardless of
how early you order.
gambiting wrote 10 hours 4 min ago:
Sure, but the regulator in this case is making an argument that
it's creating an unfair pressure to make you purchase a thing,
and that the timer is consistently shorter than it needs to be.
It's the same thing as going on a website and it says "order
within next 30 minutes for a 50% discount" and then you come
back an hour later and it still says the same thing - it
creates an incentive on you to purchase by creating an illusion
of urgency. It's the illusion part that the regulators have a
problem with.
DIR <- back to front page