April 29, 2021 | 

SPEAKER BIOS

Welcome

Acting Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was sworn in as a Federal Trade Commissioner on May 2, 

2018 and named Acting Chairwoman by President Biden on January 21, 2021. Prior to joining the 

Commission, she served as Chief Counsel to Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the Democratic 

Leader. A native New Yorker, she advised Leader Schumer on legal, competition, telecom, privacy, 

consumer protection, and intellectual property matters, among other issues. Prior to joining Senator 

Schumer's office, Ms. Slaughter was an associate in the D.C. office of Sidley Austin LLP. Ms. Slaughter 

received her B.A. from Yale University and her J.D. from Yale Law School. 

Opening Remarks

Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester represents Delaware in the U.S. House of Representatives and 

serves as an Assistant Whip for House Leadership. Lisa sits on the House Committee on Energy and 

Commerce, which has broad jurisdiction over health care, the environment, commerce and trade, 

energy policy, telecommunications, manufacturing, and consumer protection. She recently introduced 

legislation that, among other things, prohibits large online operators from manipulating their products 

to mislead consumers into providing personal information or giving consent. She graduated from 

Fairleigh Dickinson University with a B.A. in International Relations and put herself through graduate 

school as a working mom – earning a M.A. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of 

Delaware.

Senator Mark Warner was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 2008 and reelected to a third term 

in November 2020. He serves on the Senate Finance, Banking, Budget, and Rules Committees as well as 

the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is the Chairman. During his time in the Senate, Senator 

Warner has established himself as a bipartisan leader who has worked with Republicans and 

Democrats alike to cut red tape, increase government performance and accountability, and promote 

private sector innovation and job creation. Senator Warner has been recognized as a national leader in 

fighting for our military men and women and veterans, and in working to find bipartisan, balanced 

solutions to address our country's debt and deficit. 

Panel 1: What Are Dark Patterns, and Why Are They Employed?

Harry Brignull is the user experience (UX) design expert who coined the term ‘Dark Patterns’ in 2010. 

He runs darkpatterns.org to raise public awareness of manipulative and deceptive design practices. 

Harry has a PhD in Cognitive Science and provides expert witness services for Dark Patterns. His critical 

work and views have been used by The Wall Street Journal, Vox, The New York Times, The Financial 
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Times, The Verge, Gizmodo, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Ars Technica, Consumer Reports and The 

Norwegian Consumer Council. Harry's UX consultancy clients have included Spotify, Pearson PLC, 

HMRC, Smart Pension, and The Telegraph.

Johanna T. Gunawan is a Doctoral Student in the Cybersecurity program at Northeastern University, 

where she previously received her M.S. in Cybersecurity and B.A. summa cum laude in Political Science. 

Her research investigates user privacy, consumer protection, and tech policy issues. Prior to pursuing 

the Ph.D., Ms. Gunawan worked as a technical writer for Akamai Technologies' Networks department 

and as a technical UX writer for Rapid7.

Katharina Kopp is the Deputy Director and Director for Policy of the Center for Digital Democracy, 

where she leads on various initiatives to explore how commercial data practices and technologies 

adversely affect individuals, groups, and society. She focuses on how public policy solutions, grass roots 

efforts, and constituency building can be deployed to mitigate those risks and advance data justice. Dr. 

Kopp served as a key policy advocate during the passage and implementation of the Children’s Online 

Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). She completed her Ph.D. and M.A. in communications and public 

policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated from the University of London.

Arunesh Mathur is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy. His 

research examines the societal impacts of technical systems through an empirical lens. His dissertation 

research showed how commercial, political, and other powerful actors employ dark patterns to exploit 

individuals and society. His research has received two best paper awards (ACM CSCW and USENIX 

SOUPS) and the Privacy Papers for Policy Makers Award.

Kat Zhou is a product designer at Spotify and the creator of the <Design Ethically> project. <Design 

Ethically> started out as a framework for applying ethics to the design process and has now grown into 

a toolkit of speculative activities that help teams forecast the consequences of their products. Before 

moving to Stockholm to work at Spotify, Kat worked as a designer in the public service division at IBM,

before pivoting to cybersecurity. Today, she serves on the board of advisors for the YX Foundation, a 

hybrid coalition-design lab focused on the intersections of AI/ML and critical race theory.

Panel 2: How Do Dark Patterns Affect Consumers?

Ryan Calo is the Lane Powell and D. Wayne Gittinger Professor of Law at the University of Washington. 

He co-founded the University’s Tech Policy Lab and Center for an Informed Public with colleagues in 

computer science, information science, and human centered design and engineering. Professor Calo is 

the author of 2014 article Digital Market Manipulation and other work on dark patterns.

Jennifer King is the Privacy and Data Policy Fellow at the Stanford University Institute for HumanCentered Artificial Intelligence. An information scientist by training, Dr. King is a recognized expert and 

scholar in information privacy. Sitting at the intersection of human-computer interaction, law, and the 

social sciences, her research examines the public’s understanding and expectations of online privacy as 

well as the policy implications of emerging technologies.

Jonathan Mayer is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University, where he holds appointments in the 

Department of Computer Science and the School of Public and International Affairs. Before joining the 

Princeton faculty, he served as technology counsel to United States Senator Kamala D. Harris, as the 
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Chief Technologist of the Federal Communications Commission Enforcement Bureau, and as a 

technology advisor at the California Department of Justice. Professor Mayer holds a Ph.D. in computer 

science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Finn Lützow-Holm Myrstad is the Director of Digital Policy at the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC), 

focusing on national and international issues related to privacy, cyber security, net neutrality, 

copyright, telecommunication and more. Finn develops and promotes international standards as the 

EU Chair of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue ́s (TACD) Digital Committee, which gathers 75 

organizations from the US and Europe. Some of Finn ́s projects include privacy and security challenges 

posed by internet connected devices, user terms in apps, tech companies’ use of dark patterns and 

online tracking.

Panel 3: How Do Dark Patterns Specifically Affect Communities of Color?

Jasmine McNealy is an Associate Professor of Telecommunication at the University of Florida, where 

she teaches courses on regulation and policy. She researches media, technology, and law with an 

emphasis on privacy, surveillance and data governance. She is also the Associate Director of the 

Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project at UF, and a Faculty Associate at Harvard University’s 

Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

Stephanie T. Nguyen is a research scientist and designer focused on human computer interaction, 

policy design and technologies that impact underserved populations. She is a Civic Science Fellow at 

Rita Allen Foundation and was previously at MIT Media Lab focused on data privacy protections and 

the Obama White House focused on designing better services related to immigration, student loans 

and Medicare. She holds a Masters in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in Digital 

Media Theory & Design from the University of Virginia.

Mutale Nkonde is the CEO of AI for the People, nonprofit communications firm that educates Black 

communities about the racial justice implications of advanced technologies. She was part of a team 

that introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act to the US House of Representatives in 2019. She 

also is a Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford University.

Kelly Quinn (PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago) is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of 

Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has an interdisciplinary research focus on 

the ways in which new communication platforms, such as social media, intersect with privacy and life 

stage. Her recent work has centered on privacy literacy and its role in how individuals conceptualize 

privacy and navigate online.

Panel 4: How Do Dark Patterns Target Kids and Teens?

Criscillia Benford, PhD, is an educator, researcher, and media theorist who serves on the boards of the 

Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the Children's Screen Time Action Network. As a 

researcher, she investigates how different media, media environments, and interfaces impact human 

perception, action, and wellbeing. She is particularly interested in understanding and communicating 

how to use interaction design to minimize media and interface distortions of "reality."
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Dona Fraser is the Senior Vice President for Privacy Initiatives at BBB National Programs, where she 

oversees the strategic development, implementation, and ongoing efforts of the organization’s privacy 

programs, activities, and services. Ms. Fraser previously served as the Director of BBB National 

Programs’ Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU), helping CARU to grow its membership and nearly 

double participant numbers for the CARU COPPA Safe Harbor program—the first FTC-approved Safe 

Harbor program.

Josh Nelson is a proven social change leader with 15 years of experience using digital advocacy, onlineto-offline campaigning, communications and data to win campaigns for progressive change. He 

previously served as Vice President at CREDO Mobile, where he led teams responsible for advocacy, 

digital, communications and philanthropy, and as Director of Online Communications at Al Gore’s 

Alliance for Climate Protection.

Jenny Radesky is a Developmental Behavioral Pediatrician and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the 

University of Michigan Medical School. Her NIH-funded research focuses on the use of 

mobile/interactive technology by parents and young children and how this relates to child selfregulation and parent-child interaction. She was the lead author of the American Academy of 

Pediatrics (AAP) policy statements Media and Young Minds in 2016 and Digital Advertising to Children 

in 2020.

Panel 5: How Can We Best Continue to Address Dark Patterns? Potential 

Strategies for Dealing with Dark Patterns

Brigitte Acoca joined the OECD’s Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation in 2005, where 

she supports the activities of the OECD’s Committee on Consumer Policy on protecting consumers in 

the digital transformation and improving the evidence base for consumer policy making, and its 

Working Party on Consumer Product Safety. She holds an L.L.M. in European Institutional and 

Competition Law from the College of Europe and a postgraduate degree in European and Private 

International law from University Paris II Panthéon-Assas.

Laura Brett oversees the BBB National Programs’ New York Office and leads BBB National Programs’ 

National Advertising Division (NAD)—the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation founded in 

1971 to boost consumer trust in advertising. She has helped develop NAD’s body of guidance in the 

evolving area of truthfulness and transparency for advertising in digital media, including the review of 

the adequacy of disclosures in influencer marketing as well as other digital formats. In addition to 

speaking regularly on these issues, Ms. Brett has published articles on the ethical standards of 

advertisers in social media and participated on several panels at FTC workshops and hearings.

Maureen Mahoney is a Senior Policy Analyst at Consumer Reports. Her areas of focus include state 

data privacy, security, and data breach notification legislation; state right to repair legislation; and 

robocalls policy. Maureen completed her undergraduate work at The University of Chicago and 

received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jennifer Rimm is an Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Consumer Protection at the Office of 

the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. Rimm previously worked as an Associate at 

Shearman and Sterling and as a Counsel at WilmerHale.
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Lior J. Strahilevitz is the Sidley Austin Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, where he has 

taught since 2002. Strahilevitz has written extensively on data privacy law, property law, consumer 

contracts, Fourth Amendment law, and law and technology. Strahilevitz is a member of the American 

Law Institute and served as an adviser to the ALI’s Principles of the Law, Data Privacy Project and is 

currently a principal investigator on an NSF grant to use AI to facilitate privacy-preserving information 

sharing about data security threats. He earned his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and 

his J.D. from Yale Law School.

Lauren E. Willis is the Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Law at Loyola Law School in Los 

Angeles. She specializes in consumer law and policy, including consumer finance, privacy, contracts, 

education, disclosure, and litigation. Her scholarly work concentrates on the intersection of consumer 

psychology, market structure, and law. Before coming to academia, Willis was a litigator in the Housing 

Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and worked with the FTC on predatory 

mortgage lending litigation. She is a graduate of Wesleyan University and Stanford Law School.

Closing Remarks

Daniel Kaufman is the Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. The Bureau works 

to protect consumers against unfair, deceptive or fraudulent practices. He was the Bureau’s Deputy 

Director from 2012-2020, and has also served as the Bureau’s Chief of Staff, and as an AttorneyAdvisor to former FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras. Daniel joined the FTC in 1998 as a staff 

attorney in the Division of Advertising Practices, where he litigated cases challenging unsubstantiated 

health and disease advertising claims. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and graduated cum 

laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School where he was awarded Order of the Coif.