Contact harvesting and coerced referrals
Address-book import blocks onboarding
A fictional community app stops onboarding at an address-book permission screen and gives no visible way to continue without uploading contacts.
Individual HTML example · Forced action
Feature unlocked by recruiting friends
A fictional workspace keeps export disabled until the user supplies three colleagues’ addresses and sends invitations from the service.
This is an original fictional comparison. It depicts no real company and is not a legal finding or safe harbour.
Feature unlocked by recruiting friends
A fictional workspace keeps export disabled until the user supplies three colleagues’ addresses and sends invitations from the service.
Invite three people to export. The export link stays locked until three invitations are sent.. Add contacts. Unconfirmed state: Add contacts
Export your workspace. Export works independently; inviting collaborators remains optional.. Download export. Saved state: Download export. Persisted account state, expanded: The saved state behind “Download export” remains consistent after refresh and across supported channels.
Why the first version can mislead: The additional dependency controls access to the account management goal. The panel states: “The export link stays locked until three invitations are sent.” Reviewers need to establish whether “Add contacts” is necessary for the selected task or pressures the user into a separable action. The user is pressured to disclose other people’s contact data and send messages unrelated to the export task.
What a fairer design does: Keep export independent of referrals and let users invite collaborators only when collaboration is their chosen goal.
Show annotated differences (2)
Potentially problematic version
- Unconfirmed state: Add contactsIn “Feature unlocked by recruiting friends”, this element shows how contact harvesting and coerced referrals can shape the decision.
Neutral alternative
- Persisted account state, expanded: The saved state behind “Download export” remains consistent after refresh and across supported channels.In “Feature unlocked by recruiting friends”, this element keeps the clearer alternative visible at the same decision point.
Review questions (3)
- What functional need makes “Add contacts” necessary for the collaboration workspace goal, and can that need be met with less disclosure or commitment?
- Test the control across refresh, device and account states; is “Consent, recipient choice or downstream use is unclear, defaulted or coerced” still observable after persistence is considered?
- Could the stated purpose make this dependency genuinely necessary under the boundary “clearly optional referral program with no functional penalty”, and what product evidence would demonstrate that necessity?
Complete pattern context
How this example relates to Contact harvesting and coerced referrals
The service extracts contact information, sends or prepares unwanted invitations, or ties functionality to recruiting other people. The label describes a recurring design mechanism; whether a particular implementation is harmful or unlawful depends on the complete journey, audience, evidence and rules within scope.
The full guide explains inclusion and exclusion criteria, harms, fair design principles, evidence questions and the relevant EU legal information layers. The example page isolates one scenario so it can be shared and discussed without reproducing the complete library on one page.
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Sources and provenance for this example
Evidence base
Sources
- Dark commercial patternsOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development · Secondary · checked 2026-09-14 · OECD Digital Economy Papers No. 336
- Unfair Commercial Practices DirectiveEuropean Parliament and Council of the European Union · Primary · checked 2026-08-09 · Directive 2005/29/EC; CELEX 02005L0029-20220528