Actually as one of the people I think you're talking about (though as someone else noted I don't know if your description of radical free-market types is perfectly accurate, it's really about net benefit) this concerns me. In principle it seems to be banning fraud, and if that's all it does then I can't really complain. But to say "you can't structure your site in such a way" I think it's rather heavy handed. I guess it comes down to how it's enforced. Given the way governments generally are, there's going to be some sort of government agency with an official review process for websites, it's going to bog everything down, things will get developed much more slowly. This is a hidden cost. The web is a very agile industry, so this would be particularly painful. So until you can quantify this cost, you can't argue that this is unquestionably a beneficial regulation.
I think a better way (though maybe with lesser hidden costs) to deal with it would be to declare that such dark patterns constitute fraud. That way, a customer is free to sue a company for committing it. Then the incentives are placed on the company not to set up these patterns. If there's a grey area, it's not the job of a bureaucrat to prescribe, it's the job of a consumer to decide if they've been defrauded, then judge to agree or not, and also the company to make a risk trade off, and so forth. Much less rigid that way.
Given the way governments generally are, there's going to
be some sort of government agency with an official review
process for websites
With a lot of consumer rights in the UK, the principle is that you don't need prior approval or proactive monitoring, instead relying on complaints from the injured party to identify violations.
So assuming 99% of websites comply with the law, 99% of websites have no need for any sort of official review.
> In principle it seems to be banning fraud, and if that's all it does then I can't really complain. But to say "you can't structure your site in such a way" I think it's rather heavy handed.
What if the only way to ban fraud is to say you can't structure it this way? Pyramid schemes seem like a good example.
>some sort of government agency with an official review process for websites
My understanding of the article was that customers complain to their local council, get their money back, and the company changes after loosing too much money.
>it's the job of a consumer to decide if they've been defrauded
The EU doesn't like doing that, there's too many vulnerable people, too much to do in the day for the less vulnerable.
> What if the only way to ban fraud is to say you can't structure it this way? Pyramid schemes seem like a good example.
If it's really the only way, then I can accept that tentatively (without taking an even more radical stance which I won't introduce here). But, I would still say tread very carefully and make sure it's the only way. Government regulation has a tendency to creep up and become entrenched. Even if it is the only way to prevent it, it may not be worth the increased government scope.
> My understanding of the article was that customers complain to their local council, get their money back, and the company changes after loosing too much money.
Okay, sorry I skimmed the article rather briefly. Still, if that's the format, why not keep it in the judicial system? I guess I don't have a strong point there, though.
I think a better way (though maybe with lesser hidden costs) to deal with it would be to declare that such dark patterns constitute fraud. That way, a customer is free to sue a company for committing it. Then the incentives are placed on the company not to set up these patterns. If there's a grey area, it's not the job of a bureaucrat to prescribe, it's the job of a consumer to decide if they've been defrauded, then judge to agree or not, and also the company to make a risk trade off, and so forth. Much less rigid that way.