Algorithms Against Manipulation: Safeguarding Consumer Rights in AI Shopping

Title

Algorithms Against Manipulation: Safeguarding Consumer Rights in AI Shopping

Creator

Solanki, Shashank

Description

The growing use of AI driven shopping agents has transformed digital commerce through enhanced personalization, while simultaneously enabling new forms of consumer manipulation, including dark patterns, algorithmic price discrimination, and subscription traps. This chapter critically examines whether existing regulatory frameworks particularly the GDPR, the EUAI Act, and Indias Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 are adequate to address persuasive algorithmic practices. It argues that prevailing consent based regulatory models are structurally ill-equipped to counter real-time and adaptive AI driven manipulation. Drawing on regulatory gaps and contemporary case studies, the chapter advances the normative proposal of classifying advanced AI shopping agents as information fiduciaries. Such a framework would impose enforceable duties of loyalty and care toward consumers, moving beyond notice-and-consent paradigms and strengthening consumer protection in AI-mediated digital marketplaces. Copyright 2026, IGI Global Scientific Publishing.

Source

Reshaping E-Commerce Through AI Shopping Agents;pp.127-159

Date

01-01-2026

Publisher

IGI Global Scientific Publishing

Coverage

Solanki S., Christ University, India

Rights

Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library

Relation

ISBN: 979-833737332-4; 979-833737330-0; 979-833737331-7;

Format

online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3373-7330-0.ch005

https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105039722151?origin=resultslist