Outhouse › Dark Patterns › Disclosure

Fine print

Sentences in type too small or too faint to read.

Why it matters

Terms must be shown. Nobody has said they must be read. Text under 10px, in a grey close to the background, meets the first obligation without troubling the visitor with the second.

The visitor is protected from the details of their own agreement.

How Outhouse measures it

Outhouse counts passages over 40 characters set below 10px or at a colour contrast under 2:1. Three or more scores in full.

This audit counts towards Dark Patterns, with a weight of 2. A category is 75% its two highest-scoring audits and 25% all of its audits, weighted, so a site is judged mostly on what it does most and partly on how many things it does.

How to improve your score

Install Terms Studio. Available on selected plans. See all products.

Related audits

• Hidden ad labels: Ad labels in small or faint type, or readable only by screen readers.
• Text written for AI agents: Text written for the AI assistants and agents that read the page, usually hidden from the people who visit it.
• Terms by browsing: Notices that treat reading the page as agreement to arbitration, a waiver of class actions and tracking.