A dark pattern is a user-interface design technique that steers people toward or away from choices by making some options harder to understand or select. Cookie consent interfaces can make refusing tracking more difficult than accepting it, preserving users’ value as advertising targets. section 3.5.7
Cookie opt-out
French regulators fined Google and Facebook after finding that opting out of cookies was intentionally harder than accepting them. Similar penalties followed for Google and Amazon, showing how commercial incentives can conflict with straightforward user choice. section 3.5.7
The issue is not merely confusing design: difficult refusal can enable monitoring and tracking. GDPR and French privacy law require opting out to be as simple as opting in, while regulators increasingly challenge companies that resist that standard. section 3.5.7
