SAN FRANCISCO – Google and Facebook are allegedly tricking European users into sharing more personal information than they know.
A consumer advocacy report by the Norwegian Consumer Council, out Wednesday, said the companies are using “dark patterns,” or designs and user interfaces to trick users into unintentionally taking an action, to nudge people “toward the least privacy friendly options to a degree that we consider unethical.” The report said Microsoft’s Windows 10 is also doing this to a lesser extent.
For example, Facebook users who wanted to opt out of a facial recognition feature are prompted with a warning saying “if you keep face recognition turned off, we won’t be able to use this technology if a stranger uses your photo to impersonate you.” This framing and wording, the report argues, nudges users toward a decision by making them feel like the alternative is “ethically questionable or risky.”
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