The EDPB Sheds Light On 'Dark Patterns' In The New Guidelines 3/2022

Who has never found themselves clicking on a huge green button underneath the privacy settings, convinced that this would validate their choices, only to realise that they had just, against all odds, accepted all the default settings? Who has never found themselves, on each visit to the same website, in front of complex cookie (sub)windows, even longer than the page visited? Or who has never given up on the idea of deleting their account on a social network at the 5th stage of the tedious process? This has probably happened to everyone, so much so that it has inspired a mini game of refusing cookies as quickly as possible.

On 14 March 2022, the European Data Protection Board ("EDPB") published the 3/2022 guidelines on dark patterns on social networks, the non-transparent practices of influencing or even forcing users to make decisions about their privacy or rights.