La Jornada: Morena presents reform against the deceptive practices of financial digital platforms

The Morena bench in the Chamber of Deputies yesterday presented an initiative to put an end to “dark design patterns” or dark patterns on the platforms of companies and financial institutions with digital services, which translate into purchasing pressures on consumers or additional charges to the original prices, as occurs with plane tickets.

These are tricks or deceptive practices applied by digital financial platforms and have become a problem for consumers in Mexico, the group’s coordinator, Ricardo Monreal Ávila, highlighted in his proposal.

It proposed prohibiting the use of digital interface designs that hinder the effective comparison of goods or services, as well as the default preselection of options, products, insurance or additional services that imply an economic charge without prior and explicit consent of users.

In the initiative to reform the laws for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services, for the Transparency and Regulation of Financial Services and for Regulating Financial Technology Institutions, he explained that Mexico is the second financial technology market in Latin America, with more than 650 companies in operation, but in which deliberate acts of deception are committed.

The platforms, he noted, introduce deliberate user interface design techniques with camouflaged buttons, confusing language, labyrinthine cancellation flows, pre-selection of onerous options, artificial urgency counters, hidden costs revealed at checkout, and consents obtained by default.

He said that the Commission for the Protection and Defense of Users of Financial Services itself has documented furtive actions for the addition of products in purchases without the consumer’s consent, charging for hidden subscriptions or “social proof”, which consist of messages to induce the purchase, such as “another 65 people have seen this product in the last 24 hours.”