Photo: Unsplash/ Rupixen
Tactics like countdown timers and messages showing items fast running out stock when buying things online are being labelled as insidious by Consumer.
It wants such practices banned, saying their use is completely unregulated in New Zealand.
The strategies are known as "dark patterns" and include the likes of hidden fees and making subscriptions hard to cancel.
Consumer surveyed some 1500 New Zealanders and found about a quarter had kept online subscriptions longer than they wanted, while 40 percent said they ran into problems cancelling something because of dark patterns.
"They're just t
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