Reconstructing Consumer Protection Against Dark Patterns in Indonesian E-Commerce Law

The expansion of electronic commerce has shifted consumer risk from conventional misinformation toward manipulation of the digital decision-making environment. This study examines whether Indonesian law adequately addresses dark patterns and develops a legally operational reconstruction model. The study's distinctive contribution is not merely the recognition of dark patterns, which has already been discussed in Indonesian scholarship, but the formulation of a four-part regulatory architecture that connects (i) an effect-based legal definition of dark patterns, (ii) fair digital interface duties, (iii) meaningful consent standards, and (iv) behavioural accountability of electronic-system and platform providers, together with a defined allocation of legislative, administrative, and remedial functions. The normative analysis covers Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection, the Civil Code, Law No. 1 of 2024 amending the Electronic Information and Transactions Law, Law No. 27 of 2022 on Personal Data Protection, Government Regulation No. 71 of 2019, Government Regulation No. 80 of 2019, and the current Minister of Trade Regulation No. 19 of 2026 on Electronic Commerce. Comparative analysis examines the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Singapore through common functional criteria: recognition of manipulative conduct, consent standard, interface obligations, platform responsibility, enforcement authority, and remedies. The findings show that Indonesian law can indirectly reach several dark-pattern practices through information, good-faith, contract, consumer-protection, and data-protection norms, but it lacks an explicit cross-cutting standard for manipulative choice architecture and a coordinated enforcement pathway. The proposed reconstruction therefore supplements, rather than replaces, existing regimes by introducing an effect-based prohibition, minimum interface standards, meaningful-consent safeguards, platform compliance duties, coordinated supervision, and consumer remedies.