{"id":99365,"date":"2018-07-30T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/?p=99365"},"modified":"2019-12-21T07:58:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T15:58:41","slug":"20180730-00","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/20180730-00\/?p=99365","title":{"rendered":"Dark Pattern: Opt-in above the fold, but opt-out below the fold"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my colleagues reminded me of a Dark Pattern<\/a> employed by the installer for the media player for that internet protocol<\/a> that got the rug pulled out from under it.<\/p>\n

When you got to the shovelware portion of the installer, it showed you this:<\/p>\n

\n
We have partnered with other companies to bring you these valuable offers. Select the ones you wish to install.<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n
\u2610<\/td>\nLitWare Deluxe Trial Edition<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy LitWare, Inc.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2610<\/td>\nProseWare Search Toolbar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy ProseWare, Inc.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2610<\/td>\nToy Shopping Toolbar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy TailSpin Toys<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u25b4<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u25be<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Next<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You see that everything is unchecked, so you click Next<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You have fallen into the trap.<\/p>\n

Look at that scroll bar on the right hand side. It’s scrolled only partway through the list. And if you had scrolled down the list, you would have seen this:<\/p>\n

\n
We have partnered with other companies to bring you these valuable offers. Select the ones you wish to install.<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n\n\n\n\n
\u2610<\/td>\nToy Shopping Toolbar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy TailSpin Toys<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2611<\/td>\nFabrikam Ad Network<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy Fabrikam, Inc.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u2611<\/td>\nWeb Speed Boost<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 <\/td>\nBy Trey Research, Inc.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u25b4<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u25be<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Next<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

That’s right. All the items you could see without scrolling were unchecked by default, but everything else was checked by default.<\/p>\n

As my colleague noted, “This may be one of the few times where it cost more to be placed below<\/i> the fold.”<\/p>\n

Bonus reading<\/b>: One of the pieces of bundled software was an app that wants to crash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Don’t stop yet. Read all the way to the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1069,"featured_media":111744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-99365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oldnewthing","tag-history"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Don’t stop yet. Read all the way to the end.<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1069"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/oldnewthing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}