People are spending more than intended online because of manipulative website techniques, research from Consumer has found.
So called 'dark patterns' are design features that steer consumers to actions they might not actually intend or want to do.
They look like hidden fees or add-ons at a website's checkout, or hard to cancel subscriptions and urgent prompts like 'only one left'.
A survey of some 1500 New Zealanders by Consumer found about a quarter kept online subscriptions longer than they intended, while 40 per cent said they had difficulty cancelling something because of the dark patterns.
Consumer is calling for a ban dark patterns as unfair trading among several other recommendations.
Chris Schulz is Consumer’s senior investigative journalist.
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