These NEED to be regulated HEAVILY.

Dark patterns make everything worse, there is no valid reason to use them. NONE.

Short term gains from such patterns do not offset the harms these patterns cause.

Infamous if you are a USA business looking to enter Australia, maybe? I have seen some hilarious examples of what overseas companies expecting to be able to treat Australian customers the same was they treat USA citizens, like the top half http://www.hp.com.au loudly proclaiming they do NOT honour their warranties. (Well, as the link to the ACCC explained, they did, but only if you battled your way through a thicket of dark patterns.) But, after the lesson is learned, major foreign companies do seem honour the letter of their warranties in Australia. It must suck to be one of their customers outside of Australia.

Bupa appears to be in the process of learning the same lesson, after a decade of being pricks to deal with. I'm with them. Not by choice. My USA employer pays for health insurance, and that's what they give you. It saves me 1000's a year, but OMG, Bupa make repeated mistakes that are always in their favour, they don't respond when it's pointed out, when they are forced to respond because of repeated phone calls they outright lie. It took me 3 months to get $200 out of them. I did it out of spite in the end, because the $200 wasn't worth the amount of time they made me spend. And now, surprise, surprise: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/bupa-in-court-for-unco...

> which means more exposure to retailers and subscription services that have no Australian presence and therefore can't be subjected to Australian law

Yep. I was one of them. I did that, and then got bitten, over and over again. Now one of the first things I look for in a company I'm buying off is "do they have an ABN (Australia Business Number" (It's a tax ID.) If they do, they are subject to Australia law, and the risk is at a level I find acceptable. If they don't it's a complete lottery. Even for cheap things. It's not just the lost money, it's the time you waste in dealing with these people, the days of correspondence before you realise they aren't acting in good faith. You then re-order somewhere local, but now you've lost weeks. It's why I buy domains through an Australia mob like https://ventraip.com.au/. Yes I've found foreign companies that have provided me the same, if not better service at a better price. But if every case, that small foreign firm got bought out by some bigger company, and I found myself in dark pattern hell.

There are exceptions of course. Sites like amazon, ebay and alibaba enforce very similar rules on the suppliers they allow onto their platforms. But outside of those platforms, if I have to deal with a company outside of Australia, the first question I ask myself is "am I prepared to throw this money away if it all goes sour". It's not a question I bother asking myself when dealing with an Australia company.

however, URL dark patterns are the digital equivalent of IRL social engineering.