Illuminating Manipulative Design: from ‘Dark Patterns’ to Information Asymmetry and the Repression of Free Choice under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive

Dark patterns' are defined as 'tricks used in websites and apps that make you do things that you didn't mean to, like buying or signing up for something.' The term describes 'deceptive' and 'manipulative' techniques implemented when designing an app, website, or platform to change a user's behaviour in a way that would not have happened without the dark pattern. Yet much of the academic scholarship on the regulation of manipulative design has focused on privacy and data protection legislation. This article identifies seventeen common types of 'dark patterns'. It facilitates critical, legal, and regulatory dialogue by proposing a new taxonomy consistent with the relative provisions of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). Critical analysis of three respected dark patterns taxonomies provides the basis of analysis of the protections provided to consumers by the UCPD. This approach focuses on the category of dark patterns we refer to as relying on 'Information Asymmetry' and an analysis of practices we identify as causing 'Free Choice Repression.' The article closes with policy recommendations to improve the regulation of dark patterns for commercial purposes

Visible-light promoted atom transfer radical addition-elimination (ATRE) reaction for the synthesis of fluoroalkylated alkenes using DMA as electron-donor

Here, we describe a mild, catalyst-free and operationally-simple strategy for the direct fluoroalkylation of olefins driven by the photochemical activity of an electron donor-acceptor (EDA) complex between DMA and fluoroalkyl iodides. The significant advantages of this photochemical transformation are high efficiency, excellent functional group tolerance, and synthetic simplicity, thus providing a facile route for further application in pharmaceuticals and life sciences

{μ-6,6′-Dimeth­oxy-2,2′-[ethane-1,2-diyl­bis(nitrilo­methanylyl­idene)]diphenolato-1κ4 O 6,O 1,O 1′,O 6′;2κ4 O 1,N,N′,O 1′}(methanol-1κO)(tetra­fluoridoborato-1κ2 F,F′)-2-copper(II)-1-sodium

In the dinuclear salen-type title complex, [CuNa(BF4)(C18H18N2O4)(CH3OH)], the CuII atom is chelated by two O atoms and two N atoms of the deprotonated Schiff base in a square-planar geometry. The Na atom is seven-coordinate as it is linked to four O atoms of the same Schiff base ligand, one O atom of the methanol and two tetra­fluorido­borate F atoms. The remaining two F atoms of the anion are disordered over two sites in a 0.598 (18):0.402 (18) ratio

3-Amino-4,6-dimethyl­thieno[2,3-b]pyridine-2-carbonitrile

The mol­ecule of the title compound, C10H9N3S, is almost planar, with a dihedral angle of 1.38 (4)° between the thio­phene and pyridine rings. In the crystal packing, mol­ecules are linked into layers parallel to the ab plane by inter­molecular N—H⋯N hydrogen bonds and by π⋯π stacking inter­actions involving adjacent pyridine and thio­phene rings with a centroid–centroid distance of 3.537 (3) Å