Disney Fined Nearly $3M Over Deceptive 'Dark Patterns'

Disney will pay a record fine of nearly $3 million to settle with California's Attorney General over its streaming services' deliberately confusing data privacy controls, the largest penalty to date under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

• Let it go? Not so fast: The Attorney General's investigation zeroed in on what it called a deliberately confusing opt-out process that made it nearly impossible for users to stop their data from being sold. The state found that privacy toggles were often confined to a single device and webforms were ineffective, while Disney's connected TV apps offered no way to opt-out at all.
• A costly habit: The settlement marks a troubling pattern for Disney, coming just months after the company paid a $10 million FTC fine in December for violating COPPA with its data collection on YouTube. The two penalties push Disney's privacy-related fines to nearly $13 million in less than six months.

The settlement puts a spotlight on the growing regulatory war against "dark patterns"—deceptive user interfaces designed to hinder consumer choice. With the California AG also probing other outlets, a detail first reported by Deadline, the move is a clear warning shot to the entire media industry.