Dark Patterns · principle
Bait & Switch
Playable Play this law (~3 min)or keep reading below ↓
The user sets out to do one thing and something different happens: a download button that installs something else, a close button that opens an ad, an advertised price that never exists at booking. Named in the CCPA (2023). The pattern weaponises learned affordances — the more universal the control, the more profitable its hijack.
Where it comes from
Bait advertising predates software by a century — the storefront that advertises a bargain it barely stocks, then steers you to the pricier model, was common enough that US law banned it in the 1950s and India's Consumer Protection Act covers it as 'bait advertisement'. Brignull's 2010 taxonomy simply noted the digital twist: on screens, you can bait with an AFFORDANCE, not just a price — the button itself can lie.
Origin: FTC bait-advertising rules (1959); the hijacked ✕ button
In the wild
- Fake download buttons
File-hosting pages where the biggest 'Download' belongs to an advertiser — the real link hides in small text.
- The hijacked ✕
Windows 10's upgrade dialog famously treated closing as consent — the most-clicked control on earth, repurposed.
- Unavailable advertised fares
'From ₹1,999' that exists only for one date eight months out is bait with a calendar alibi.
Further reading
Don't just read it — feel it.
Play the 3-minute game and let your own reactions prove the law.
Play the lesson