Google's reCAPTCHA v2 just labor exploitation, boffins say
www.theregister.com
Web puzzles don't protect against bots, but humans have spent 819 million unpaid hours solving them

Research Findings:

  • reCAPTCHA v2 is not effective in preventing bots and fraud, despite its intended purpose
  • reCAPTCHA v2 can be defeated by bots 70-100% of the time
  • reCAPTCHA v3, the latest version, is also vulnerable to attacks and has been beaten 97% of the time
  • reCAPTCHA interactions impose a significant cost on users, with an estimated 819 million hours of human time spent on reCAPTCHA over 13 years, which corresponds to at least $6.1 billion USD in wages
  • Google has potentially profited $888 billion from cookies [created by reCAPTCHA sessions] and $8.75–32.3 billion per each sale of their total labeled data set
  • Google should bear the cost of detecting bots, rather than shifting it to users

“The conclusion can be extended that the true purpose of reCAPTCHA v2 is a free image-labeling labor and tracking cookie farm for advertising and data profit masquerading as a security service,” the paper declares.

In a statement provided to The Register after this story was filed, a Google spokesperson said: “reCAPTCHA user data is not used for any other purpose than to improve the reCAPTCHA service, which the terms of service make clear. Further, a majority of our user base have moved to reCAPTCHA v3, which improves fraud detection with invisible scoring. Even if a site were still on the previous generation of the product, reCAPTCHA v2 visual challenge images are all pre-labeled and user input plays no role in image labeling.”

  • Bezier@suppo.fiEnglish
    831·
    3 months ago

    they wanted you to do two or three and that’s absurd

    Yea how about 20

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
      53·
      3 months ago

      VPN? Google will just go in a loop with these things, so I just stopped using Google completely.

      • Bezier@suppo.fiEnglish
        12·
        3 months ago

        No. But it’s also not like I get 20 constantly, it was just the worst I’ve seen. Usually it’s 2 to 5, I think.

        I assume they’re just collecting data on how many are users willing to do.

        • LucidNightmare@lemm.eeEnglish
          20·
          3 months ago

          One time I did five in a row, because I use VPNs for everything, and realized after the 5th time that it would have been easier to just use bing so I do that first now. Google has turned into my last last resort, which is quite funny, because that’s where Bing used to be. Lmao

      • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
        10·
        3 months ago

        Whenever I’m on a private window the captchas just keep on coming. Trying to reset your Steam password via the program will also trigger an infinite loop of captchas, you HAVE to use a browser.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zipEnglish
      111·
      3 months ago

      if you have to do that many, you either have some privacy setting on or on a flagged ip given from a VPN

        • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
          61·
          3 months ago

          Most people don’t, most bots do. You look more like a bot, so you get extra challenges.

        • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zipEnglish
          61·
          3 months ago

          its abnormal to them because vpns are often also used by bad actors. your use is not abnormal but its a there are other people misusing it making it worse for everyone else.

          • Landsharkgun@midwest.socialEnglish
            31·
            3 months ago

            Wow, way to blame individuals who take basic precautions instead of the corporations who are blantly invading your privacy. Good job making the world a better place, bud.

            • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              3 months ago

              point where i blame the individuals, the blame is clearly on the bad actors (e.g bots)

    • sramder@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      3 months ago

      I tried to order some components on Digikey a few months ago and I’m still mentally scarred. Probably did a few hundred of those things over the course of 2 weeks.