Nope. Not sarcasm. I'm going through each of the kiddo's tablets and cataloging every dark pattern, in every game. Then I'm writing up the details of our nightmare with PayPal, the couple of financial institutions I've had nightmares getting things closed out from, and possibly even chucking in a few examples of contact template language that I think qualify like "To opt out, send a hand-signed letter to yada-yada...".

I'm so tired of malicious compliance, hidden or disguised unsubscribe links, and complete disregard for the burden imposed on consumers.

Gacha games, loot boxes, that type of thing. Basically everything listed here.

https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3400901

but also

https://www.darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern

or monitored here:

https://www.darkpattern.games/

I've come to realize these types of "Dark Patterns" exist in way more than just UI's. Businesses often find ways of leveraging the fruits of them for alternate revenue streams.

I'm sure there are academics out there who'll nail down the white paper aspect, butI tend to try to supply a boots on the ground eye-view since I spend a lot of time trying to teach people what to look out for, and why it's a problem.

Why would this be sarcasm? Wouldn't a well researched paper be the ideal public comment? I don't understand how the top comment here is so unpopular.

Not doing those things and achieving the same outcome at no cost.