LocalCircles writes to Union ministers; urges to curb dark patterns, strengthen consumer trust

In a bid to curb dark pattern practices prevalent across digital platforms, LocalCircles founder, chairman and CEO, Sachin Taparia, in a letter, has urged Union ministers, including finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and commerce minister Piyush Goyal, to take urgent action against such platforms.

The letter, dated September 25, came just after the community platform released its survey report showing that only 3% of the country’s popular digital platforms are free from such manipulative practices.

“The LocalCircles September 2025 audit shows that there has been limited impact of the government guidelines and call to action in 2025, with an estimated just 3% platforms in India being free of dark patterns. While some other platforms have addressed a few of their dark patterns in the past 3-6 months, the majority have ignored the notified guidelines,” Taparia wrote in the letter.

“At LocalCircles, we believe that these dark patterns can be resolved and must be resolved but doing so requires active engagement of all the industry regulators and authorities who govern companies operating online platforms that are consumer-facing,” the letter added.

Taparia added that if regulators in each sector enforce these guidelines on the platforms under their purview, the effectiveness of the entire exercise will improve. "Over the course of the next three months, LocalCircles will make public sector-level dark pattern data, along with any examples of dark pattern-free platforms. We will share your respective sectoral data with you as it becomes available,” he added.

“Addressing these dark patterns will lead to increased consumer trust in Indian products and services and as a result, drive faster adoption of digital channels and enable sustainable economic growth for our nation,” he added.