India’s efforts to curb deceptive user interface practices are gaining momentum, but fragmented enforcement across sectors risks undermining consumer rights, exposing how regulatory patchworks leave consumers vulnerable to billions in losses.
India’s crackdown on so-called dark patterns is moving from policy to enforcement, but unevenly. A recent LocalCircles survey found that 80% of consumers had encountered at least one such tactic in telecoms, while similar complaints surfaced in securities and insurance. The same research estimated that Indian consumers lose as much as INR280 billion, or USD2.91 billion, each year to these practices.
The problem has been on regulators’ radar since 2023, when the Central Consumer Protection Authority notified the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023. Those rules describe dark patterns as deceptive interface or user-experience designs meant to push users into actions they did not intend, and they ban 13 categories of conduct under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
The CCPA has since acted against a range of digital businesses, including airlines, quick commerce platforms, ticket-booking services, edtech firms and cybersecurity companies. It has also said the consumer-protection framework is not limited to the listed categories of unfair trade practice, and has made clear that default or pre-selected options do not amount to affirmative consent under e-commerce rules.
Yet enforcement remains patchy. The framework applies across platforms, but sector regulators continue to oversee their own industries, and there is little formal coordination between them and the CCPA. That has been most visible in telecoms, where, according to the article by Law.asia, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has taken no action and the CCPA has not issued a notice.
By contrast, other regulators have begun to respond more directly. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has asked insurers to review compliance after consumer complaints, while the Securities and Exchange Board of India has proposed bringing its advertising rules into line with the dark-pattern guidelines. In June 2025, the CCPA also encouraged e-commerce firms to carry out voluntary self-audits and file self-declarations, but it has still imposed fines even where companies fixed their interfaces after receiving notices, underscoring that remediation does not erase liability.
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