India’s norms against dark patterns may hurt ease of doing business: Big Tech coalition

The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), that has Meta, Amazon, X, Google and other Big Tech companies as its members, has opposed the draft dark pattern guidelines by the Indian government, saying the move may stagnate the growth of India’s digital economy by having an adverse effect on the ease of doing business.

The government released draft guidelines last month to curb “dark patterns” used by online platforms. These dark patterns mislead people into doing something they did not wish to do, such as paying for items or services they did not intend to buy.