Unfortunately, it seems our service has to come to an untimely end. After being previously told we were in 100% compliance with the rules, our Amazon affiliate account was closed a few months ago. Amazon claimed we were violating their rules against showing product and price information that was more than 24 hours old. Obviously, this is something ALL price history trackers do, not just PriceZombie. Overnight, we lost over 90% of our income but we kept going, hoping to resolve any issues and return to compliance. However, our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely
Unfortunately, it seems our service has to come to an untimely end. After being previously told we were in 100% compliance with the rules, our Amazon affiliate account was closed a few months ago. Amazon claimed we were violating their rules against showing product and price information that was more than 24 hours old. Obviously, this is something ALL price history trackers do, not just PriceZombie. Overnight, we lost over 90% of our income but we kept going, hoping to resolve any issues and return to compliance. However, our appeals to Amazon affiliate program administrators (associates@amazon.com) and even Jeff Bezos (jeff@amazon.com) were either ignored or answered incompletely
Everyone has been there. So in 2010, London-based UX designer Harry Brignull decided he’d document it. Brignull’s website, darkpatterns.org, offers plenty of examples of deliberately confusing or deceptive user interfaces. These dark patterns trick unsuspecting users into a gamut of actions: setting up recurring payments, purchasing items surreptitiously added to a shopping cart, or spamming all contacts through prechecked forms on Facebook games.
Dark patterns aren’t limited to the Web, either. The Columbia House mail-order music club of the ’80s and ’90s famously charged users exorbitant rates for music they didn’t choose if they forgot to specify what they wanted. In fact, negative-option billing began as early as 1927, when a book club decided to bill members in advance and ship a book to anyone who didn’t specifically decline. Another common offline example? Some credit card statements boast a 0 percent balance transfer but don’t make it clear that the percentage will shoot up to a ridiculously high number unless a reader navigates a long agreement in tiny print.
“The way that companies implement the deceptive practices has gotten more sophisticated over time,” said UX designer Jeremy Rosenberg, a contributor to the Dark Patterns site. “Today, things are more likely to be presented as a benefit or obscured as a benefit even if they’re not.”
When you combine the interactive nature of the Web, increasingly savvy businesses, and the sheer amount of time users spend online, it’s a recipe for dark pattern disaster. And after gaining an awareness for this kind of deception, you’ll recognize it’s nearly ubiquitous.
