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FLR·B·002

Dark Patterns

broke: honesty itself documented

Everything else in this basement is incompetence; this exhibit is intent. A dark pattern — the field now says deceptive pattern, following Harry Brignull, who coined the original term in 2010 and later led the renaming — is an interface engineered to make you do what the business wants by exploiting exactly the principles the rest of this building teaches. The same knowledge, aimed the other way.

The register here is factual and increasingly legal: the FTC's click-to-cancel rulemaking, the EU's DSA provisions and GDPR consent case-law mean several of these specimens are no longer merely rude — they are enforcement actions with docket numbers. The basement documents the named types:

SUBSCRIBE one click CANCEL exit, eventually
FIG B·002 — the roach motel, as floor plan.
  • Roach motelEasy in, deliberately hard out — the one-click subscribe beside the phone-call cancel.
  • ConfirmshamingThe decline link written to insult you: “No thanks, I hate saving money.”
  • Sneak into basketThe pre-added insurance you must notice to remove.
  • Drip pricingFees revealed only at the final step, after the effort is sunk.
  • Privacy ZuckeringConsent flows where the sharing option glows and the refusal hides.
  • False urgencyThe countdown that resets; the “2 rooms left” that never sells out.
The lessonEvery deceptive pattern is a legitimate principle inverted — friction, defaults, framing, urgency. The building's knowledge is dual-use; this room is where the Institute says so plainly.
The recordBrignull, deceptive.design taxonomy (2010–) and Deceptive Patterns (2023); FTC click-to-cancel rule and enforcement record; EU consent-design case law.
StairwellDefaults, friction & framing — the principles that make these work, and the ethics clause attached to each.
Upstairs kinFloor 4's Cancellation flow — the battleground room where regulation is currently redrawing the pattern live.

Why documented: Brignull 2010 for the term, and FTC/EU regulatory actions for the specimens.