"So called 'dark patterns' are steering people to spend more than they would otherwise intend to - and manipulated up to a third of those buying through websites, [Consumer NZ] revealed in a report out today."
#RolandVanDenBergh, The Post, Nov 13, 2025
"Consumer surveyed some 1500 New Zealanders and found about a quarter had kept online subscriptions longer than they wanted, while 40 percent said they ran into problems cancelling something because of dark patterns."
@ninetonoon, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/578757/how-dark-patterns-are-ruining-online-shopping
One difficulty for governments who want to regulate websites, apps, and other online services is that when neither their operators nor their servers are local, identifying who's legally responsible for a service can be complicated.
When NZ bank accounts are paying online service operators, payment receivers can be clearly identified. But the question of who has jurisdiction over them, under what conditions, is still complicated.
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The EU seems to take the position that anyone providing services to EU citizens is bound by EU law, regardless of where in the world they or their infrastructure is located. But enforcing this has proven to be complicated, even for a federation with a population of almost half a billion.
But I can't help thinking that blocking payments from NZ bank accounts to online service operators who don't comply with NZ consumer protection laws has a better chance of working than most approaches.
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