Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD dissertation at Maastricht University. They say raising a child takes a village. Turns out, so does writing a PhD. That is to say that I have a multitude of people to thank for supporting me throughout this journey, and in the following pages I’ll attempt to mention a few.

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors. It was an honour and immense pleasure to be supervised by Michael Faure, Cătălina Goanță and Jerry Spanakis. Michael, you have opened the world of regulation theory to me and guided me through it. Thank you for taking a chance on my ‘hocus–pocus’ project. You used whatever it took – carrots, sticks and sermons, to make sure that I cross the finish line, and I am grateful for all of them. Cătălina, in the past five years you raised me as a consumer law scholar and empowered me to find my academic voice. Thank you for always encouraging and inspiring me to be the best researcher I could be and never tiring to brainstorm my next steps. Jerry, I hope you enjoyed your foray into consumer law as much as I enjoyed delving into computer science under your supervision; it was a true delight. Thank you for always keeping your door open to answer any random question that popped into my mind. My incredible supervisors were a constant source of encouragement and continued to believe in me in times when I found it difficult to believe in myself. I cannot thank the three of you enough for your support, trust and commitment, and can only hope to be at least half the supervisor you were to me to my students.

I am very thankful to the members of the assessment committee – Bas van Zelst, Christoph Busch, Adriana Iamnițchi and Vanessa Mak – for their time and effort in assessing my thesis, and insightful remarks. Thank you also to Niels Philipsen and Johanna Gunawan for joining my defense committee.

I would also like to thank my mentors and collaborators, who have entertained endless conversations about dark patterns, technology regulation and academic life: Güneş Acar, Rūta Liepiņa and Cristiana Teixeira Santos. I have also had very fruitful exchanges of ideas with Harry Brignull, Colin Gray, Arunesh Mathur, Arianna Rossi, Kush Amlani, Konrad Kollnig, Dries Cuijpers, Anne-Jel Hoelen, Egelyn Braun, Marco Almada and Alexandru Șotropa. Anna Beckers and Daniel On have been of incredible help in aligning the many moving pieces of the methodological puzzle created by an interdisciplinary thesis. A special thanks goes to the leadership of the Maastricht Law & Tech Lab – Marcel Schaper and Gijs van Dijck. I took many of my academic first steps under your supervision. You were also the first to suggest that I pursue a PhD. Thank you for encouraging and inspiring me to take this step.

Writing a PhD thesis during a global pandemic was challenging, but doing so in the supportive environment of the UM Faculty of Law and our Graduate School of Law made all the difference. The Faculty went the extra mile to ensure our well-being in this period, and also provided me with the extra time that I needed to wrap up my research. To our dean, Jan Smits – thank you for the leadership you’ve shown in multiple times of crisis. I am also immensely grateful for the support of my amazing manager, Jos Hammers.

During my 10 years of studying and working at UM, I have met some incredible people whom I am proud to call my chosen family: Mark Kawakami, Anna de Jong, Isabelle Jennekens, Diāna Bērziņa, Marie Gérardy, Tanya Mohile, Nikol Nikolova, Bogdan Covrig and Amira Fretz. Mark, thank you for confiding your rants in me and for listening to all of my rants, and for making sure we never run out of snacks. Anna, I am grateful to have found a partner in crime in you – be that our PhD representative stints or Eurovision watch parties. Isabelle, your work, life and fashion advice are all equally fabulous. Diāna, thank you for making sure to walk me as often as necessary and that I WWW (wash, water and wait) in any crisis. Marie, I am so proud of your journey, and thankful for the bits we undertook together, especially our writing days during the pandemic. Tanya, ‘life is not to be suffered’ is to this day one of the wisest phrases I’ve ever heard. Nikol, thank you for always being just a call/flight away and for being a voice of reason in a sometimes unreasonable world. Bogdan, I don’t even know where to begin. We’ve been through so much together – Covid, long Covid, countless rewatches of Hamilton and mediocre baking and crafting experiments, web development crash courses and me crashing at your place in-between leases. You are my rock. Amira, thank you for agreeing to build a home with me in Den Haag, leaking light fixtures and all. Your light shines so brightly that I am confident I will not get lost with you by my side.

The amazing working environment is why I stayed in Maastricht for as long as I did. I would like to thank all of my colleagues and friends from the faculty who have made Maastricht University a place where I feel at home over the past 10 years: Constantijn van Aartsen, Anne Pieter van der Mei, Sjoerd Claessens, Nicole Kornet, Bram Akkermans, Laura Aade, Matteo Bonelli, Sally Thin, Ruben della Pia, Sarah McGibbon, Danai Petropoulou Ionescu, Marta Pertegás Sender, Jana Trifunović, Mieke Olaerts, Monica Claes, Thales Bertaglia, Vageesh Saxena, and many others. Marina Jodogne and Licette Poll were true lifesavers in the months leading up to the PhD defense. The Maastricht University Press team, Michel Saive and Ron Aardening, together with our vice-dean Anke Moerland and Patrick van Eijs, have made my dream of publishing an open access book true and made sure that the book is true to who I am as a researcher.

The defense of my PhD also marks the end of my time at UM. I am very grateful to my new academic home – the eLaw Center at the Leiden University Faculty of Law – and particularly the core members of the RESOCIAL project team – Gianclaudio Malgieri, Michael Klos and Maria Rebrean – for a very warm welcome. I look forward to working together with you.

Heartfelt thanks to my friends outside of work for their endless patience with my need to frequently reschedule plans due to deadlines and for providing a much-needed balance and perspective throughout this journey: Lynnel Janssen and our fur-baby Max, Iulia Buludov, Maia Ignatenko, Olesea Curalova, Veerle van Waarde, David Natarajan, Roman Bîrca, Serghei Trofimov, Alexandru Amariei, Andra-Elena Albișoru, Bas Langohr, Luca Bücken and Remco van den Kieboom.

I would also like to thank my family. My mother Angela Roșca taught me and reminded me as often as necessary that I can do anything I put my mind to. Her home in Italy is where I flee to whenever I experience a minor inconvenience. My father Alexei Roșca has always supported my creative pursuits, and supplied relief from late night study sessions in the form of Moldovan food and lectures about market manipulation in ancient markets. Mama și tata, vă mulțumesc pentru dragostea și sprijinul vostru. My not-so-little baby brother Alex Roșca is my favourite teammate in life and video game opponent. Thank you for always reminding me that play is as important as work, Alex. I am, however, still not over the fact that you turned out to be (so much) better at Beat Saber than me. I am also beyond grateful to my grandparents Ecaterina and Grigore Popa, whose kindness and work ethic have always been and continue to be my moral compass. My grandmother unfortunately passed away as I was approaching the end of my PhD journey. Bunica, not a day goes by without me thinking of you. My other grandmother, Galina Dimo, to whom this work is dedicated, sadly passed away in the second year of my PhD. She helped my mother raise me and taught me how to read and write. Бабуля, I miss you more than words can tell.

This book is also dedicated to those PhD researchers that are now in the thick of it. Life will not wait for you to be done with the PhD. Step back when you need to, find friends you can lean on, and remember that you won’t disappoint anyone, including yourself, if you decide that this is not your path. Fighting inertia is much more powerful than going with the flow (more on that in Chapters 3&4).

A big shoutout to the pop rock bands whose music never failed to get me into a writing state of mind – Fall Out Boy and Imagine Dragons.

Last, but not least, in the words of Snoop Dogg, ‘I wanna thank me’.