Context

Regulators increasingly recognise manipulative interfaces, addictive design and obstructive cancellation as consumer-protection problems. Naming the mechanism creates legal language for harms that were previously described only as frustrating design.

Recognition is not the same as removal. Rules must be interpreted, enforced and translated into product changes, while companies can redesign a mechanism faster than a case moves through institutions.

Argument

Article 25 of the Digital Services Act prohibits dark-pattern interfaces. The European Parliament adopted a resolution on addictive design in December 2023 by 545 votes to 12. The Commission’s fitness check on consumer law estimated harm from unfair digital practices at no less than €7.9 billion a year and opened consultation on a Digital Fairness Act in 2025, with a proposal expected in late 2026. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission’s click-to-cancel rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit in July 2025 on procedural grounds. Every mechanism named in these thirty-one theses has been described in a statute, a resolution or a complaint. The like limits are still there this morning.

The gap is partly one of scope: a general prohibition must still be connected to a specific interface and evidenced as manipulation rather than ordinary product design. It is also a gap of speed and remedy. The law can identify a pattern while the commercial incentive that produced it remains active, leaving enforcement to catch up one design decision at a time.

Evidence

Key finding

Article 25 of the Digital Services Act prohibits dark-pattern interfaces.

Implication

Regulatory recognition has advanced faster than enforcement and product change.