WPS Estelle NEW.pdf
(5.12 MB, PDF)
… Parliament and the European Central Bank. Their flexibility and support were instrumental in the successful completion of this degree. Special thanks also go to my marraine, Christine, and my mother, Sylvie. Their unwavering encouragement, thoughtful check-ins, and love were a constant source of strength throughout the thesis journey. Finally, I am sincerely grateful to all staff members at the European Centre for Privacy and Cybersecurity and Maastricht University. I especially thank Megan Lana, … that nudge users toward specific, predictable decisions.13 The term ‘dark patterns’ was first coined by Brignull nearly fifteen years ago, who defined it as “tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn’t mean to, like buying or signing up for something”.14 Initially, the term served as a catch-all to describe how UI designs could negatively influence users and their decision-making, as reflected in Brignull’s taxonomy. Brignull's original definition and taxonomy, while groundbreaking, have been expanded upon by subsequent research to reflect other types of dark patterns as well as their harmfulness.15 In 2019, Mathur and others conducted an extensive study analysing 53,000 product pages from 11,000 shopping websites. This research uncovered nearly 2,000 instances of dark patterns.16 Their research led to a more comprehensive taxonomy and a refined definition of dark patterns as “user interface design choices that benefit an online service by …