What is a dark pattern in an app?

What do dark patterns look like on a phone?

Many apps use one or two of these without much thought. The ones to worry about stack several on a single screen. A paywall with a pre-selected weekly plan, a delayed close button and a countdown is using three at once, and each one makes the next harder to notice.

What has the FTC said about them?

In September 2022 the US Federal Trade Commission published a staff report, Bringing Dark Patterns to Light, describing a rise in sophisticated designs that trick or trap consumers. It grouped them into four broad tactics: disguising ads, making it difficult to cancel subscriptions, burying key terms and junk fees, and tricking people into sharing data.

Google Play's own deceptive behaviour policy also forbids apps that mislead users about what they do. The store's subscription rules require offer terms to be clear before purchase, including the price after any trial.

Why are cleaner apps a common example?

Storage cleaners sell relief from a worry, which makes urgency easy to manufacture. A scan that reports thousands of 'junk' items followed by a paywall is a familiar sequence. Billing problems were the largest complaint theme in 40,376 public cleaner-app reviews GalleryJury analysed, at 35.3% of 1–2★ reviews, and many of those describe a trial that turned into a charge the reviewer had not noticed agreeing to.

For the regulatory side, see negative option billing. For a checklist of warning signs, see are photo cleaner apps safe to use.

How can I protect myself?

1. Read the plan's period word, such as 'week', 'month' or 'year', before the price.
2. Scroll the whole paywall; small print often sits below the button.
3. Close the screen and reopen the app to see whether the 'offer' returns.
4. If you start a trial, open Google Play > Payments & subscriptions straight away and note the renewal date.