Organizations apply aggressive tactics to harvest and exhaust data from individuals. These tactics exploit human psychology to manipulate individuals’ behavior through user interface design characteristics. Because governmental regulations for data collection were introduced recently, organizations make use of digital sludging to prevent individuals from refusing the consent for the data collection – most commonly within the cookie consent. Digital sludging is characterized as excessive and unjustified frictions that increase the effort and decrease the attention of a specific choice. Hence, we conducted a vignette study to investigate digital sludging in the privacy context further. Overall, we contribute to existing research by demonstrating how privacy concerns affect the perception and interaction with the cookie consent. In addition, we outline how manipulative practices such as digital sludging influence individuals’ decision-making
