I found recently that my least favourite dark pattern is due to legal idiocy:
“Check this box if you do not want to receive…” happens so frequently because, legally speaking, in Europe you’re not allowed to have a pre-checked checkbox wrt marketing preferences. A sensible lawmaker would have said (as some countries in the EU have demanded for their regions) that preferences cannot be opt-out, but because they didn’t consider the consequences impactful a legally responsible company must implement the dark pattern. Sad panda.
