Abstract

To an ever-greater extent, we spend our lives in an online environment designed by corporations. These corporations have an interest in shaping not only our purchasing behavior, but also our focus of attention and engagement and to some extent our worldview and identity. As a means to this end, they collect and trade in personal information. One important method of behavioral influence employed to advance these purposes is default-setting - the design of a product or a situation such that one option out of several seems natural to accept, because it is the path of least resistance. Default-setting is a non-rational influence, often imperceptible, yet effective. To protect users from defaults that are manipulative and harmful, individually and collectively, societies should require minimal quality standards. Just as some products are overall too harmful or too poor to be legally marketed, other products have default settings that are too harmful or too poor to be acceptable. In particular, defaults should minimize inadvertent consumption, should minimize the collection of personal data, and when providing information should be truthful. In addition, opt-out costs should be minimal in order to empower users who prefer alternative options.