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Which checkout tricks count as dark patterns under India's consumer protection rules?

The Central Consumer Protection Authority's 2023 guidelines name 13 dark patterns and cover platforms, advertisers and sellers, and in June 2025 it asked e-commerce businesses to audit their own interfaces. For a D2C store the risky ones are concrete: a pre-ticked add-on, donation or membership in the cart (basket sneaking), fees or taxes that appear only at checkout on a price shown as inclusive (drip pricing), countdown timers and 'only 2 left' claims that aren't true (false urgency), a decline button worded to shame (confirm shaming), and a subscription that is easy to start and hard to cancel. By September 2026 the authority had acted against Zepto, FirstCry, PharmEasy, BookMyShow and others, with fines of ₹1 lakh to ₹7 lakh and forced redesigns. Walk through your own checkout once as a stranger and fix anything you wouldn't want screenshotted.

Go deeper

3 resources, 3 India-specific, 3 link-checked.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

A September 2026 review by lawyers at Lex Consult of the dark-pattern cases the Central Consumer Protection Authority has acted on, with what each one did wrong.

From nudge to notice: What India's dark pattern orders mean for digital business

From Bar & Bench by Naresh Pareek, Abhishek Nair and Shravan Kalluri

  • Cases include Zepto (basket sneaking and drip pricing), FirstCry (GST added at checkout on tax-inclusive prices), PharmEasy, BookMyShow and IndiGo
  • About ₹20 lakh in penalties across seven platforms, individual fines between ₹1 lakh and ₹7 lakh
  • Keep optional add-ons unticked, show every charge before commitment, and make cancelling no harder than signing up
Open barandbench.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Beginner

Storyboard18's June 2025 report on the consumer authority's advisory asking e-commerce platforms to audit their own interfaces for dark patterns.

CCPA warns e-comm firms over 'dark patterns'; self-audit within 3 months

From Storyboard18 by Storyboard18

  • E-commerce platforms were asked to self-audit within three months and remove deceptive designs
  • Named examples include false urgency, hidden costs and pre-selected options
  • The authority encouraged self-declarations that a platform is free of dark patterns
Open storyboard18.com →
📄 Article
✓ Link checked India Free Beginner

A plain explainer, published on the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy's blog, of the Central Consumer Protection Authority's 2023 dark-pattern guidelines and who they cover.

From Trickery to Transparency: India's New Guidelines on Dark Patterns

From Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy by Ayushi Srivastava and Manu Jalaj

  • The guidelines cover platforms, advertisers and sellers offering goods or services in India
  • They list specified patterns such as false urgency, basket sneaking, confirm shaming, subscription traps and drip pricing
  • The guidelines do not set fixed penalty amounts; enforcement runs through the Consumer Protection Act
Open vidhilegalpolicy.in →

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