#34 Dark Patterns: How Design Nudges Become Exploits with Marie Potel

This episode of Business and Society unpacks “dark patterns” – deceptive design features in apps and websites that push people into actions they never intended, such as unwanted subscriptions, extra fees, oversharing data, or staying online longer than planned. Guest Marie Potel, founder of Fair Patterns, explains that these patterns are fundamentally different from normal marketing because they exploit cognitive biases and obscure critical information, undermining user autonomy, distorting competition, and even posing risks to democracy when people are trained to click “I agree” without thinking.​

Marie and Senthil discuss concrete cases like fake urgency in travel and hotel booking, and Amazon’s multi‑billion‑dollar settlement over Prime sign‑ups and cancellations, before turning to solutions. Marie outlines how Fair Patterns uses ethical AI and a Figma plugin to detect and replace dark patterns with transparent “fair patterns,” and argues that fair, plain‑language design not only reduces legal risk but also builds trust and can drive higher long‑term growth for companies that adopt it.

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