A survey by LocalCircles shows a growing number of users are noticing alleged "dark patterns" on over-the-top (OTT) platforms, with a surge in complaints against services including Zee5, SonyLIV, Amazon Prime Video and JioHotstar over the past year. Eight in ten of these users in the country say they have experienced "dark patterns".
This follows a nationwide survey involving more than 118,000 OTT users across 324 districts with consumers seeking strict actions against the platforms.
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According to the report, as competition increased, many users reported problems such as subscription traps, misleading offers, hidden charges, forced actions and cancellation options that were difficult to find.
LocalCircles said complaints were not confined to a single platform. While Zee5 recently drew criticism over alleged issues related to FIFA World Cup streaming subscriptions, including claims of automatic enrolment, misleading subscription information, unexpected charges and refund difficulties, similar complaints have also been received against SonyLIV, Amazon Prime Video, JioHotstar, Netflix, YouTube, Airtel Xstream Play and Apple TV.
Consumers have reported being charged despite cancelling subscriptions, facing additional rental charges for content they believed was included in their plans, encountering advertisements despite paying for ad-free subscriptions, and struggling to disable auto-renewals due to hidden or non-functional cancellation options.
The report noted that the consistency of complaints across both Indian and global platforms suggests that the use of alleged "dark patterns" is widespread rather than limited to a few operators. Although the CCPA introduced guidelines in 2023 prohibiting deceptive digital practices, LocalCircles survey shows compliance across OTT platforms remains inconsistent.
In one of the survey's key findings, 60% of 16,550 respondents said they had frequently faced difficulty cancelling monthly or annual subscriptions because cancellation options were unavailable or deliberately hidden within the interface. Of these, 22% said the problem occurred "very frequently", while 38% said it happened "sometimes".
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LocalCircles said it wrote to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), seeking enforcement of the dark pattern guidelines.
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