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It turns out that while you're proving to the web server you're a human, you might also be pitching in to provide one of Google's services to its corporate customers. A woman filed a class action lawsuit against Google last Thursday in US District Court in Massachusetts, alleging that Google's reCAPTCHA service has harvested unpaid image-to-text transcription work from millions of web site visitors. Google markets reCAPTCHA as a service to web site owners; its customers include Facebook, Twitter, and Ticketmaster. Like other CAPTCHA implementations, reCAPTCHA challenges site visitors to type in the text corresponding to a visually distorted word. But reCAPTCHA differs from the others in that its images often contain two distorted words, as noted by the civil complaint:
One of those words is a “known” word, which the website user must enter correctly to access the website as a security measure. That is, because Google already knows what word is being displayed in the first distorted image, if the user enters the word correctly, Google knows the user is likely to be a human, and thus permits the users to continue using the website...
The other of the two words, however, serves no security purpose. The second word is an image with text that Google is attempting to transcribe. The sole purpose of the second word is to require the user to read and transcribe the word for Google’s commercial use and benefit, with no corresponding benefit to the user.
The lawsuit notes that Google makes use of optical character transcription for its own products such as Google Books and Street View, and also provides an archive digitization service to newspapers, including the New York Times.
This was apparently never a dark secret; the use of reCAPTCHA to "crowdsource" digitization of old printed materials was publicized as a feature by both Luis von Ahn (who invented reCAPTCHA as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University) and Google (who acquired the reCAPTCHA technology in 2009):
reCAPTCHA technology was developed not merely with an eye toward improving cyber security, but also as a way to harness and reuse the collective human time and mental energy spent solving and typing CAPTCHAs—a concept von Ahn has dubbed “human computation.” By constructing CAPTCHAs using words tagged as unreadable in the digitizing of books and other printed material, millions and millions of cyber users play a part every day in the digitization and preservation of human knowledge by transcribing words. Tests have shown that reCAPTCHA textual images are deciphered and transcribed with 99.1% accuracy, a rate comparable to the best human professional transcription services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27 2015, @08:57AM
yea well she didn't agree to be an independent contractor so you can profit off her unpaid labor
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27 2015, @08:59AM
*can't (legally)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 27 2015, @09:19AM
yea well she didn't agree to be an independent contractor so you can profit off her unpaid labor
She chose to do it. No one asked her to do anything. She could just as easily created a free email account at many [duckduckgo.com] other places.
She decided to fill in the re-captcha. No one promised her any compensation or consideration. If she wanted to be recompensed, she could have contacted Google and requested it. Fat lot of good it would have done, but again, it was her choice to do so. No one made any false promises or tricked her into doing anything. She did exactly what she wanted to do: create a gmail account.
One other tidbit, I don't profit (except as we all profit from more books being digitized) from anything Google does. I'm not a fan of Google. In fact, I find their practices reprehensible.
Don't like Google? I'm right there with you, friend. But from a logical and (N.B. IANAL) legal standpoint, there is no basis for a claim on her part, IMHO.
Obviously you have an axe to grind. Please do it on someone else's lawn.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by romlok on Tuesday January 27 2015, @11:22AM
And I wonder how many of those other places also require a reCaptcha to sign up for an account? From what I've seen, this could well be yet another Google service that has become so ubiquitous that it's bordering on monopoly.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 27 2015, @10:21PM
She chose to do it. No one asked her to do anything. She could just as easily created a free email account at many other places.
And I wonder how many of those other places also require a reCaptcha to sign up for an account? From what I've seen, this could well be yet another Google service that has become so ubiquitous that it's bordering on monopoly.
I'm not sure. At the same time, whether to fill in a re-captcha or not is still a choice that the user makes. No one forced the plaintiff to do anything.
I've said this repeatedly, but apparently you folks only comprehend what you want to, so I'll say it again: I have no love for Google or its practices. I generally find them to be scum who profit from (virtually) rummaging through your underwear drawer.
However, using re-captcha to further its business goals (in this case to enhance its proprietary street view database) is a decision made by Google. Whether you think it's exploitation or not, you're still not forced to do anything at all. If you choose to use Google services (in this case, Gmail) then you have, IMHO, no cause for complaint.
As to other sites which use re-captcha, if enough folks refuse to sign up because of re-captcha and make noise about it, there will likely be a positive response.
In any case, this is a nonsense lawsuit and will likely be thrown out at the earliest opportunity.
If you don't like what Google is doing with re-captcha, don't use it. Better yet, give incorrect information. That'll learn 'em. Riiiight.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 28 2015, @04:35AM
not only is captcha incorporated into gmail signups it is ubitquitous in commenting forums across the internet. if you want to be part of a community you shouldn't have to "work for google" to participate. I bet google will settle this one out of court