• Artificial intelligence will help UOKiK in the fight against unfair practices.
• We are developing a project on the use of AI to detect dark patterns. Guidelines on the use of AI in consumer protection are also being developed.
• We will share our experiences in this area with representatives of authorities cooperating within the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN).

Automatically adding products to the basket, pre-selecting additional paid services. Countdown timers and messages suggesting that a promotion is about to end or that a product is about to sell out. Pressure to buy quickly. Added to this are mechanisms where signing up for a subscription is very simple, but cancelling it is deliberately made difficult. Brightly coloured ‘Buy’, ‘Order’, and ‘Add’ buttons alongside a barely visible ‘Cancel’. Options labelled in such a way that you are not entirely sure what you are agreeing to or at what stage of the purchasing process you are. Free trial periods that imperceptibly turn into paid subscriptions. All of this is accompanied by emotional messages designed to make the user feel guilty if they do not opt for the offer. Unfortunately, this list does not exhaust the range of manipulative techniques used in online commerce – the so-called dark patterns.

Artificial intelligence supporting consumer protection

The effectiveness of dark patterns stems from fundamental mechanisms of the human psyche – specifically, the way we process information and make decisions. The key concept here is ‘heuristics’, which refers to simplified rules for decision-making in conditions of uncertainty or time pressure. Although they allow us to make usually sound decisions quickly and at little cost, in the context of dark patterns they can become a tool for manipulation. The result of this heuristic ‘short-cut thinking’ is cognitive bias, which in turn may lead to misguided purchasing decisions.

Designers of e-commerce interfaces exploit this knowledge deliberately, and manipulation techniques are evolving very rapidly. This requires an adequate technological response from consumer protection authorities such as the President of UOKiK. Artificial intelligence offers an opportunity to keep pace with this rapidly developing market.

– The digital market is developing faster than traditional regulatory tools. That is why we must turn to new technologies to protect consumers effectively. This is particularly important as the e-commerce sector is already widely using advanced technologies, including AI, to identify consumers’ psychological vulnerabilities and exploit them in interface design – emphasises Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK.

In 2023, UOKiK launched a EU-funded project entitled ‘Detecting and Combating Dark Patterns with Artificial Intelligence’. The aim is to develop standards for the effective use of artificial intelligence and to create an AI tool for detecting deceptive interfaces.

The basics – know your enemy and the battlefield

In the first phase of the project, the UOKiK team analysed more than 300 websites, mainly from the e-commerce sector, in order to identify the most commonly used dark patterns. This provided the initial dataset for training the AI tool being developed. At the same time, the authority analysed consumer complaints, which helped to identify the sectors where such practices occur most frequently. Experts also analysed the source code of 100 websites identified as using dark patterns, extracting code fragments responsible for manipulative interface elements to serve as additional training data for the artificial intelligence.

To deepen the analysis, neuromarketing experiments were conducted in which participants’ physiological reactions to marketing stimuli were examined using eye-tracking (visual attention monitoring) and facial tracking (analysis of emotional reactions), as well as electroencephalography (EEG) to measure brain activity. This was supplemented by an online survey simulating real-life shopping scenarios.

Shopping under the influence of dark patterns

As many as 69 per cent of Poles aged 18–65 shop online at least several times a month – with one in seven (15 per cent) doing so several times a week. They most often cite convenience (72 per cent), saving time (68 per cent), and saving money (65 per cent) as their main reasons for shopping online, according to research by UOKiK.

Given this, it is not surprising that messages creating a sense of time pressure have the greatest influence on purchasing decisions. Over half (53 per cent) of respondents stated that they had bought a product under the influence of information about a promotion coming to an end. Meanwhile, 51 per cent cited information about limited product availability, and 45 per cent mentioned a countdown timer showing the time remaining until the end of the promotion.

From prototype to practice

In its search for AI-based solutions, UOKiK tested the capabilities of the GPT-4 model developed by OpenAI for detecting dark patterns, based on the guidelines that had been developed. The results of the pilot tests helped to create an AI tool that analyses page layouts, draws on findings from neuromarketing and behavioural research, and examines the source code. The next phase of the project focuses on testing and presenting the tool, as well as preparing guidelines on how to use AI in UOKiK’s activities.

The next opportunity to exchange experiences and discuss how consumer protection authorities can prepare for the implementation of AI-based tools will be the conference ‘Protecting Consumers in the Digital Age: AI and Dark Pattern Detection’, which will take place on 17 March this year in Bydgoszcz. Participants will include representatives of authorities cooperating within the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network (ICPEN).

– Effective consumer protection in the digital age requires a combination of legal knowledge, decision psychology, data analysis, and modern technologies. AI will neither replace nor take over our role as guardians of consumer rights in the digital world, but it can become our weapon in the fight against manipulative design – notes Tomasz Chróstny, President of UOKiK.