Last week, I found a packet of chips in my kitchen. No one at home eats chips. I definitely didn’t buy it.
Then I remembered that a few days earlier, I had ordered a handful of items on a quick-commerce app. Somewhere along the way, the app offered me a “free” gift – a packet of chips – already pre-selected for me, with an option to deselect it. I hadn’t. Because I just didn’t pause long enough to think about it.
So there it was on my counter: unwanted, uneaten and eventually destined for the bin. Unnecessary waste, created not by choice but by a dark pattern.
Pre-ticked boxes are a classic dark pattern: a design choice that benefits the business by steering users toward outcomes they might not actively choose. Research shows such patterns are widespread and that users often regret the decisions they make under these conditions. Such practices also violate the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Code and the Consumer Protection Act.
Pre-ticked boxes, consent and the DPDP Act
In theory, consent is simple. You are asked. You understand. You choose. However, in the digital world – especially on e-commerce platforms – consent has become something else entirely. It has become an assumption of your choices made by platforms.
Across apps and shopping websites, consumers are routinely “opted in” to things they never actively chose: subscriptions, insurance add-ons, priority deliveries, marketing communication, data-sharing agreements, donations, upgrades. These options are often buried in pre-ticked boxes – quietly included unless you take the trouble to remove them.
In my case, one could argue that what I received was a “benefit”. The chips were free. There was no financial loss. But that misses the point. I didn’t want them. I didn’t choose them. The platform undermined my agency as a consumer.
In India, the recent Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act says that the consent given by the Data Principal shall be free, specific, informed, unconditional and unambiguous with a clear affirmative action. Pre-ticked boxes are the opposite of needing affirmative action. It assumes silence or inertia as consent.
Globally, too, data protection and consumer protection frameworks have recognised this problem. Under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the regulation explicitly states that silence, inactivity or pre-ticked boxes do not constitute valid consent (Recital 32).
This principle was reinforced by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Planet49 case, where the court ruled that pre-ticked boxes used to obtain consent do not meet legal standards because they rely on inaction rather than intention.
The principle is simple: consent must be something you do – not something you forget to undo.
Why businesses love pre-ticked boxes
The effectiveness of pre-ticked boxes isn’t accidental. It’s psychological.
Humans are wired to accept defaults. Behavioural science calls this the default effect – our tendency to go with whatever option is already selected for us. Changing a default requires effort, attention and time. In fast, friction-filled environments like checkout pages, most people simply move on.
This bias is well-documented, from studies on retirement savings to organ donation systems. But when digital design deliberately exploits them to secure consent, the line between convenience and manipulation is crossed.
Once you start looking, pre-ticked consent is everywhere. In insurance add-ons, “free trials” that roll into paid subscriptions, marketing permissions during account creation, and several other sneaky ways. Each one nudges the consumer toward agreement without requiring a conscious decision. And each one dilutes the meaning of consent.
To build trust, unbox!
Respecting consent requires restraint and consumer centricity.
- Defaults should be neutral, not pre-selected to favour the platform or brand
- Consent should require an affirmative action
- Saying “no” should be as easy as saying “yes”
- Language should be clear, not buried in fine print
The packet of chips in my kitchen isn’t a scandal. But it reminds me that I can’t trust the delivery platform. Every dark pattern chips away trust and tells consumers that they better watch out and stay alert. And that erodes the online experience.
If platforms truly care about their consumers and consumer trust, they need to know that pre-checked boxes do not tick all the boxes!
