CCPA fines Ola ₹10 lakh, holding that asking riders to pay extra before a driver accepts is misleading and a dark pattern.

The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has imposed a penalty of ₹10 lakh on ANI Technologies Pvt Ltd, the company that runs the Ola ride-hailing app, for prompting customers to pay an additional amount, styled first as a "tip" and later as an "add-on", while they waited for a driver to accept their booking.

The authority held that the practice amounted to misleading advertisement and an unfair trade practice under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and that the interface employed "confirm shaming", a dark pattern prohibited under the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023. The order also treated the arrangement as an unfair contract.

The order, dated November 10, 2026, was passed by CCPA Chief Commissioner Nidhi Khare and Commissioner Anupam Mishra. Ola has been directed to withdraw the prompts forthwith, pay the penalty and file a compliance report within 15 days of receipt of the order.

The proceedings arose from a complaint received by the CCPA on May 16, 2025, concerning Ola's advance tipping feature. While the app searched for a driver, it displayed messages such as "Adding a tip might help increase the chances of getting a ride faster." Customers were initially offered pre-set amounts of ₹10, ₹20, ₹30 and ₹40. The suggested amounts were later raised, and the app permitted customers to enter an add-on of up to ₹499.

Ola defended the feature on the footing that the payment was voluntary, went entirely to the driver and was not subject to any deduction by the company. It submitted that the option was meant to make commercially unattractive bookings more appealing to drivers, particularly where a driver had to travel a considerable distance to reach the passenger. The company further contended that drivers remained free to accept or reject a booking, and that the add-on did not guarantee faster confirmation.

The authority tested the representation against booking data furnished by Ola itself. Data for June 10 to 16, 2025 showed that roughly 55% of ride requests carrying an add-on were accepted, as against about 70% of requests without one. Data for June 1 to 15, 2026 for three cities pointed the same way. Requests with an add-on were accepted at 38% in Delhi, 40% in Bengaluru and 39% in Mumbai, while requests without an add-on were accepted at 62%, 60% and 68% respectively.

On these figures, the CCPA found that the suggestion that an additional payment would improve a customer's chances of getting a ride was contradicted by the platform's own record.

The authority also identified an inconsistency in Ola's defence. The company maintained that the payment had no bearing on driver engagement or ride assignment, while also holding out the payment as a means of improving the chances of securing a ride. The CCPA reasoned that either position was fatal to Ola. If the payment had no influence on acceptance, the representation that it could help a customer get a ride faster was false. If it did influence acceptance, customers who declined to pay were placed at a relative disadvantage even though they had already been quoted a fare. The representation, the authority concluded, was misleading on either view.

The CCPA declined to treat the payment as an ordinary gratuity. A tip, it observed, is ordinarily given in appreciation of a service already rendered. Ola, by contrast, solicited the payment before a driver had accepted the booking or provided any service.

The authority held that tying an additional payment to the likelihood of getting a ride effectively converted a voluntary post-service tip into an advance charge for securing timely access to the service. The CCPA also rejected Ola's argument that, since the entire amount went to drivers and the company earned nothing from it, no consumer protection concern arose. It held that the destination of the money did not cure the manner in which the payment was solicited through Ola's own platform.

The authority's finding went beyond the wording of the prompts to the design of the interface. It noted that messages such as "Adding a tip might help increase the chances of getting a ride faster" and "Improve your chances of quicker ride confirmation!" were shown while customers were waiting for confirmation, without any information on driver availability, prevailing demand or the likelihood of acceptance. In that setting, the interface created anxiety about whether a ride would be confirmed and suggested that paying more would improve the outcome. This, the CCPA held, amounted to "confirm shaming" under the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023.

Ola's argument that the feature was optional and could simply be ignored did not find favour. The authority held that the absence of a mandatory payment did not make the interface acceptable, since the prompts could still steer consumer decisions through psychological pressure.

The company also argued that the feature affected only a limited proportion of customers. The CCPA rejected this, holding that a dark pattern does not become acceptable merely because it does not influence every consumer. It noted that the feature had been used in more than 100,000 ride requests in a single city and could not be described as insignificant.

The authority also took into account the position of consumers who may find it harder to refuse such prompts. It noted that Ola's booking data included pick-up and drop-off points such as hospitals, railway stations, inter-state bus terminals and airports. Users at these locations could include patients, elderly persons, travellers with luggage and those travelling alone or at night, who could be especially susceptible to the suggestion that paying more would secure a ride sooner.

In determining the penalty, the CCPA placed considerable weight on the duration of the practice and Ola's response to regulatory scrutiny. The order records, "It [the prompt] is displayed afresh on every booking while the platform searches for a driver and so recurs lakhs of times every week. The feature has been live since 27 April 2025. The tipping prompts were displayed until 22 May 2025. After that, the relabelled add-on, with the messages 'Getting you the quickest ride to your destination' and 'Improve your chances of quicker ride confirmation!', continued without a break for well over a year."

The authority recorded that the practice survived each successive stage of the proceedings, "It continued even after the show cause notice (SCN) dated 28 May 2025, after the CCPA advised the opposite party at the hearing dated 4 July 2025 to discontinue the practice and after the amendment of 15 December 2025 to the Motor Vehicles Aggregators Guidelines, 2025. It was still being demonstrated before the CCPA itself on 24 June 2026. Over this period, the suggested amounts have steadily risen from ₹10-₹40 to as high as ₹140. The opposite party did not stop the practice at any stage, despite repeated notice and hearings. This is a continuing contravention and not an isolated or short-lived lapse, which weighs against any leniency on this count."

The CCPA also referred to a communication dated August 11, 2026 from the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to motor vehicle aggregators, which clarified that platforms should not display prompts suggesting that an additional payment could improve ride confirmation before the ride is completed. It noted that the Ola app continued thereafter to display a prompt asking users to "improve your chances of quicker ride confirmation," together with pre-set additional amounts.

On the question of quantum, the order recorded Ola's standalone revenue from operations at about ₹1,060 crore for FY 2024-25, against which a penalty of ₹10 lakh represented less than 0.01%. The authority nonetheless imposed the maximum penalty prescribed for a first contravention, observing that a lower amount would not serve as an effective deterrent for a platform of Ola's size.

The operative direction is framed widely, so as to reach the substance of the practice rather than any particular label. The order directs, "The opposite party shall forthwith discontinue the display of all prompts, messages, interface designs, pre-set amounts, or any other dark pattern elements that solicit, nudge, coerce or psychologically pressure consumers into paying any amount, whether described as a tip, add-on, additional fare or by any other name, over and above the upfront fare displayed at the time of booking, prior to the completion of the journey, including but not limited to 'Adding a tip might help increase the chances of getting a ride faster', 'Tip now to boost the chances of getting a ride sooner', 'Choose to Add On - Entire amount goes to your driver', 'Chosen voluntary Add On applied. Getting you the quickest ride to your destination', 'Improve your chances of quicker ride confirmation!' and 'Generous Add On! Please re-confirm', or any variation thereof, on any platform, application, website or digital interface operated by it."

Ola has further been directed to comply with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Dark Patterns, 2023 and the Guidelines for Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022. The company must deposit the ₹10 lakh penalty and submit a compliance report within 15 days of receiving the order.

Source: CNBC 

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