Dark pattern
A dark pattern is an interface design that steers people into choices they would not otherwise make, such as a cookie banner where accepting takes one click and refusing takes several.The EDPB's Guidelines 03/2022 on deceptive design patterns in social media interfaces (2023) sort them into families: overloading, skipping, stirring, obstructing, fickle and left in the dark. In cookie banners the common ones are a bright Accept button next to a gray or text-only Reject, a Reject hidden on a second layer, pre-ticked categories, confusing labels, repeated prompts until the visitor gives in, and withdrawal that is harder than consent.
Regulators treat the result as invalid consent rather than as a separate offense. The CNIL's fines against Google and Facebook (150 and 60 million euros, December 2021), Microsoft (60 million euros, 2022) and TikTok (5 million euros, 2022) were all about refusing being harder than accepting. The EDPB task force report of January 2023 lists reject links buried in text, unreadable button contrast and pre-ticked second layers as designs that do not lead to valid consent, while saying that no single color standard can be imposed.
Other laws address the same conduct directly. Article 25 of the EU Digital Services Act prohibits online platforms from designing interfaces that deceive or manipulate users. California's CCPA regulations (section 7004) say that consent obtained through dark patterns is not consent and require symmetry in choice, and Colorado, Connecticut and most other US state laws contain the same clause. The remedy is simple: equal buttons, honest labels, nothing pre-ticked, one prompt. See dark patterns in cookie banners.