Dark Patterns in Cookie Banners
Dark patterns are manipulative design tricks in cookie banners, such as a visually prominent "Accept all" button while rejection is hidden or made more laborious. This kind of nudging breaches the GDPR requirement for freely given, informed and unambiguous consent (recital 32 GDPR). The ban on deceptive interface design in Article 25 of the Digital Services Act does not apply alongside it: that provision addresses providers of online platforms only, and Article 25(2) expressly exempts practices covered by Directive 2005/29/EC or by the GDPR.
In practice
For a lawful cookie banner this means: "Reject" must be offered on the same level and with comparable visual weight as "Accept", pre-ticked boxes are not permitted, and withdrawing consent must be roughly as easy as giving it. Rejection options buried behind several clicks, confusing wording and colour or contrast tricks also count as dark patterns and can invalidate consent entirely. The yardstick for your banner is data protection law, not the DSA: make the case internally and to clients on the basis of the GDPR and the EDPB guidelines on deceptive design patterns, otherwise you are invoking a provision that does not cover an ordinary company website at all. Data protection authorities are examining such patterns more actively, so companies should review their consent management platform regularly to confirm that both buttons are treated equally.