The paper titled ‘Staying at the Roach Motel: Cross-Country Analysis of Manipulative Subscription and Cancellation Flows’ discusses how online services make the cancellation process arduous and confusing, often leading to users continuing to pay for services they no longer use. This manipulative design pattern is referred to as a ‘Roach Motel’. The study analyzes the subscription and cancellation flows of popular news websites from four different countries and identifies several intentional barriers to cancellation. The paper calls for effective regulation of these deceptive designs that trick or manipulate users into paying for unwanted subscriptions.
Publication date: 2 Oct 2023
Project Page: https://doi.org/10.1145/nnnnnnn.nnnnnnn
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.17145
