The manipulative tech convincing you to buy, buy, buy

How Google, Facebook, banks, advertisers, and more use misleading design and ad tech to make you buy things you don't need, share your data for free, and perhaps even undermine democracy. View this email in your browser  |  Manage newsletter subscriptions 09.01.20 "Follow the money" is cliché for a reason: When trying to figure out why something happens, it helps to find out who profits. The answer is not so easy to trace, however, through the complicated and often misunderstood systems underlying our digital lives. Over the past five weeks, WIRED has been excavating these hidden architectures with two unique series, each focused on a different mechanism powering so much of the internet today. In Dark Patterns, WIRED writers examined the manipulative design elements used by platforms to stack the deck in their favor, be it social media or retail or banking or search. Re: Targeting, meanwhile, looked at how the digital advertising industry can underwrite harmful, divisive, and misleading online content, while undermining legitimate journalism and other authorities. Both of these practices, their critics claim, prioritize business models over users' welfare, and the open web suffers as a result. A healthier internet will require staying alert and informed—and helping others do so, as well. Plus: Help us learn how much trust, or not, people have in products such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Amazon. We spend much of our waking lives using these platforms. Take our survey and tell us what you think of them. TAKE THE SURVEY Follow the Money: How Digital Ads Subsidize the Worst of the Web From Covid conspiracies to election scams, automated advertising software plays a large—and largely unseen—role. The Subtle Tricks Shopping Sites Use to Make You Spend More Through deceptive designs known as "dark patterns," online retailers try to nudge you toward purchases you wouldn't otherwise make. The Blurred Lines and Closed Loops of Google Search Seemingly small design tweaks to the search results interface may change how and where people find information online. How Financial Apps Get You to Spend More and Question Less You should never invest without fully understanding the risks, but tax prep and stock trading services often obfuscate the things you really need to know. She Helped Wreck the News Business. Here's Her Plan to Fix It Nandini Jammi's advertiser boycotts scared brands away from journalism and into shady ad tech. Now she wants to teach marketers to think for themselves again. Should Google's Ad Market Be Regulated Like the Stock Market? A leading antitrust scholar says yes. Congress may be listening. Can Killing Cookies Save Journalism? A Dutch public broadcaster got rid of targeted digital ads—and its revenues went way up. How Facebook and Other Sites Manipulate Your Privacy Choices Social media platforms repeatedly use so-called dark patterns to nudge you toward giving away more of your data. This Man Broke Through Google's Election Ad Defenses A Long Island search marketer found a way to exploit Google search ads and spread misinformation about candidates. The company pledges to fix the issue. Learn How to Spot—and Avoid—Dark Patterns on the Web You've seen them before: the UX ploys designed to trick you into spending money, or make it nearly impossible to unsubscribe. Here's what to look out for.         This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book.   View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe or manage your newsletter subscriptions