Self-Certification and the Structure of Consumer Protection: A Critical Study of India’s Dark Pattern Regime

This paper critically examines India’s emerging regulatory framework for dark patterns, focusing on the Central Consumer Protection Authority’s 2025 advisory requiring e-commerce platforms to undertake self-audits. It argues that while self-audit addresses the CCPA’s resource and information constraints, it creates a structural conflict of interest because platforms assess practices from which they commercially benefit. The paper analyses the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Dark Patterns Guidelines, 2023, and the advisory’s enforcement architecture. Drawing on comparative experience under the European Union’s Digital Services Act, it proposes a tiered framework combining standardised self-audits, independent third-party verification for high-risk platforms, and risk-based regulatory oversight.