reCAPTCHA was a technology acquired by Google. Not developed in house.
edit: Also worth noting that some of this "free work" that users do for Google is used to improve bot-detection overall. The comment to this blog post (the post itself, and its paper are great reads) is a nice example:
https://security.googleblog.com/2013/10/recaptcha-just-got-e...
Essentially, the user is complaining (and justifiably so) of being served the pre-Street-View versions of CAPTCHA; I had forgotten how bad they could get: http://i.imgur.com/01F2eES.png
The original recaptcha was used to help clear up text from book digitization projects where OCR couldn't understand the data. The appeal of this was that these works were in the public domain, and thus proper digitization of these works is a societal-wide benefit.
Since Google purchased it, they've been using it to:
1.) Clean street view data for a proprietary product (Google maps)
2.) Build training sets for unknown ML purposes
These are activities that Google could very much pay a group of people to do. Instead, through recaptcha, they are getting that work from the end user for no payment. A case could be made that it's not free for the owner of the site that deploy recaptcha (because they get value out of the service, and Google gets data/ML services). However, the actual end user who has to fill out the recaptcha does not benefit in any significant way. Since a recaptcha is an inconvenience to the end user, that user pays both with the time to fill it out, and the data gathered by Google.
TL;DR Some people do not like that Google benefits from a transaction where Google is not a party, and where otherwise, Google could generate the benefit using their own resources.
According to Wikipedia and the New York Times, reCaptcha was not developed for public domain works. Its pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives, archives which were not released to the public domain nor are fully available without being a subscriber: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/29recaptcha.html
I'm not a machine learning expert but I'm going to laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do". In the above referenced NYT article from 2011, recaptcha's creator says several million words were being processed by recaptcha per day.
And again, have to disagree that the end user "does not benefit in any significant way". We would not be discussing this if Google hadn't learned from massive user data to iterate their captcha from distorted word mush to what it is today. Captcha was a serious drain of user energy and patience, that's why recaptcha was invented in the first place. And the worst captchas were tolerated because automated usage was a financial threat to websites that end users use.
It was provided a free service[0] (search free). I'm pretty sure that no one in this conversation is saying that the cost to run the service is free, and arguing such is a strawman.
was not developed for public domain works.
pilot project was to digitize the NYT archives
While the original "recaptcha.net" website is no longer available online (even via archive.org). There are plenty of sources still available that bely this claim. that will help convert printed text into computer-readable letters on behalf of the Internet Archive[0]. The team is involved in digitising old books and manuscripts supplied by a non-profit organisation called the Internet Archive[1]. "There's still about 100 million books to be digitised, which at the current rate will take us about 400 years to complete - Luis von Ahn, Carnegie Mellon"[1]. The sources are from 2007, when recaptcha was first introduced. There are more, but I picked the first two by going back to the beginning of the wikipedia entry for recaptcha and looking at the supplied sources.
This is before Google bought it in 2009. While I can't speak for anyone else, this is what I mean when I say "original" recaptcha.
laugh at your suggestion that Google could "pay a group of people to do".
They got a group of people to do it for free, which implies (barring salaries) that they could also get a group of people to do it for not-free. Thus the argument that people don't want to work for Google for free.
Google hadn't learned from massive user data
And when Google has met it's ML goals and decides it gets no further benefit from recaptcha? Remember, it's not a free-to-run service. They only continue it as long as they benefit. If recaptcha shuts down, it would have been nicer to have the fruits of that work available through something like the Internet Archive, than something like Google Books.
[0] - http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2007/May/may24_recaptcha.sht...
This isn't true. The end user benefits in a very obvious way by being able to use a site that hasn't been crippled or spammed by bots. It is very possible that many sites either would not exist or would be of much worse quality without a recaptcha-like service.
Everyone profits from recaptcha.
In other words, if Google's service didn't exist, you'd be experiencing less of the site, or no site at all if they chose to use a paywall that you refuse to pay for.
Anyway, I am not completely against it, as I said above depending on the situation I make use of it.
The value Google gets from the thing they want, and the value you get from the thing you want, aren't particularly comparable.
IMO, this is strictly better.
Google is using ReCaptcha as measure to get an unfair edge over competitors and make competing even more impossible.
You must not be living in the U.S. Even as strong as the FOIA and public records laws are, there's a huge amount of information and records that are exempted from free access:
http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/digital-journ...
Does a sweet pastry count as a cake? Is this stretch of water a river, a lake or the sea? Are those trees I see in the distance on this photo of a mountain? Does the front of a restaurant or a veterinary surgery count as a "storefront"? As a British English speaker I had to guess at that last one, and some of the others seem culturally dependent too.
Or, my personal nemesis, the ones which ask you to select the squares containing road signs, and there's always a couple of squares containing a 3-pixel strip of the very edge of the road sign, and you don't know whether you're supposed to count those or not.
Of course the site (and with it visitors) benefit in this exchange, so I agree with you that it is not entirely "free".
I wouldn't have a problem if they'd open the data set, but I'm not exactly keen on being forced to work for free.
As mentioned elsewhere in this topic; I'd much rather spend some of my free time to help improve OpenStreetMap (and I do).
Going from throwing away the work to improving Google's image recognition is a Pareto improvement so I'm interested in the justification.
From one perspective it doesn't matter - your batteries are gone either way.
But from another perspective, inspectors who keep what they find have completely different motivations - making the same outcome much more sinister and corrupt.
If they want something in return, perhaps they should consider setting up a paywall.
If you, as a site owner, don't want people to share information your server sent to their computers, implement strong DRM or don't allow off-premise access altogether. You might loose many prospective users, but at least your information will remain "safe". Probably.
If you want to share information on a website but can't think of a reasonable way to make money of it, that's your problem, not mine.
Lastly, I fail to see how a discussion on copyright relates to recaptchas or even site-owners' failed business models. Unless you can get this thread back on topic, perhaps we should continue this (most likely frutless) discussion somewhere else.
This isn't information sharing, this is using a service which has costs (hardware, software, employee time, power, cooling, etc...). You are using the ReCAPTCHA service. If you don't pay them for that (either in time or in money) then in my opinion you are stealing the cost of that service.
Just like how if you got a taxi, then just walked away without paying. Yeah, you aren't stealing any physical goods, but you are costing the taxi company something and you aren't paying for it. And if you agreed to get a free taxi ride in exchange for washing their taxi car for them, and you just walked away at the end, that would be stealing in my eyes.
Using the reCAPTCHA service lets them use the data from it for machine learning. That's the reason they are providing it for free, and if you attempt to use the service without paying (or in your scenario maliciously provide false information, which not only doesn't contribute, but can mess up the results from those who do), I feel you are stealing it just the same.
I'm under no obligation (moral or otherwise) to make honest contributions. If we wanted to continue with your analogy, it'll be like being forced into a taxi, then driven one meter, then forced to pay a large fee because the landlord doesn't want me to walk on his lawn. I didn't choose to ride the taxi. The landlord did (ignoring saner options).
If google wants a revenue from their service, they should consider charging site owners.
If google wants to train their NNs, they'll have to pay people to classify data for them.
If google doesn't want to do either, and doesn't want people like me contributing to their system, don't let site owners allow us to use their site.
Otherwise, I think google should shutdown the service.
You do have the option of not using a service that uses recaptcha. Nobody is forcing you to fill them out, you are making the choice to do it because you want the service the site owner is providing, and the site owner wants recaptcha.
If a taxi company keeps getting screwed over by patrons of a given restaurant, the company should stop providing service for said patrons, seek compensation directly from the people who require their service (the restaurant), or seek legal action against either the patrons or the restaurant.
Demanding otherwise is just naive.
It seems like you have a problem with people consenting to things you don't like, just like homophobes have problems with gays because they personally don't like consenting to same sex intercourse and think gays are ignorant of some facts (they're going to hell etc), maybe people don't care or believe in these facts and are just enjoying themselves, ever thought of that? What's the problems if other people enjoy things you don't? Live and let live.
"Whoever doesn't study history is doomed to repeat it.'
Obligatory xkcd about it https://xkcd.com/792/
“You are the product of t.v.(...) you are delivered to the advertiser who is the customer. He consumes you”
How exactly would you expect that "having a problem with it" manifests? By not watching TV and not reading any kind of newspaper?
But since you ask, it's very much the same, and people have very much had a problem with that, which raises a second fault with your argument: false premise.
Noam Chomsky. Pretty much his life's work.
Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. (NB: Mander is a former ad executive himself).
Hamilton Holt, a magazine publisher himself, wrote of the fundamental problem in 1909, Commercialism and Journalism. https://archive.org/details/commercialismjou00holtuoft
I.F. Stone spoke of the problem in 1974 on "Day at Night". The video is now on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g
Robert R. Murrow's "Lights and Wires in a Box" criticised generally the television industry, in the 1950s. http://www.rtdna.org/content/edward_r_murrow_s_1958_wires_li...
A couple of Stanford researchers in the 1990s recognised the corrosive effects of advertising on incentives in the provision of online services. The prior awareness didn't save them from faling into the same pit: http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html
Niel Postman. Technopoly and Amusing Ourselves to Death.
Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders
Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, Merchants of Doubt looks at influencing on a much broader basis.
Banksy's art is, in many regards, a direct refutation of advertising. The letter attributed to him on the topic is originally by someone else however. It remains exceedingly good reading: http://thefoxisblack.com/2012/02/29/banksy-on-advertising/
There's a large literature on the subject.
Generally, psychological aspects of advertising: http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=su%3AAdvertising+Psychologi...
Criticisms of advertising: http://www.worldcat.org/search?qt=worldcat_org_all&q=critici...
At Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_advertising
Sometimes though I wonder if I shouldn't turn adblock off, for example, and then I'm at work and some website auto-plays video and I remember.
You try to run. Your muscles burn, you heave for breath. They match your pace exactly, coming closer... and closer... and closer. You cast your gaze desperately from side to side. Isn't anyone around? You're scared. You're not a strong man, and these people all look like body-builders and criminals. No, now that they've come closer, you're not sure they look like men at all. Is that a tattoo, or is it... is it a tusk?
Then you stumble over a rock, fall, and scrape your hands. While you're rolling around and trying to get back to your feet, the men stop in a tight circle around you. They look down at you.
"What," you begin. Your voice is quavering.
"Take backups," the men say, as one. "Take backups, for you never know what may happen."
Then they disperse into mist.
Say, do you run also without a firewall and keep mail and other ports open, just to prove you are less paranoid than the rest?
Travel to/from the United States without some social media footprint is on the verge of becoming suspicious in and of itself.
Benjamin "Mako" Hill has long since observed "Google has most of my email because it has all of yours". https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be...
Facebook creates shadow profiles of non-member identities.
It goes on.
I was questioning someone feeling "hypocritical" for using other google services but disliking their new recaptcha tool.
As for "the contract": I'd wager that for most people, most contracts they see/sign are easier to get a clear understanding of, than Google's business model of "free" services.
Oh bull shit. The contracts you sign (or click I agree to) are thousands of legal definitions and words that most people don't even read, much less understand.
Google's contract is very simple: We show you ads (the more we understand your interests, the more targeted our ads) and you get to use our stuff without monetary cost.
And where do they spell that out?
I think of the personal data they collect from me and these types of things as my payment for their "free" services.
https://www.cylab.cmu.edu/partners/success-stories/recaptcha...
The original recaptcha was only text from book digitization projects.
To be fair, if you use google maps, and don't have any ethical issues with helping googler, you do get a return on investment, in that you get improved ML capabilities and improved address recognition in google maps.
Google car will replace drivers, Google VR + map will replace city guides. We're giving them knowledge and powers to replace us, for free. Professions will disappear, people will lose jobs, Google will get richer and richer, will not pay me or you for fixing their suggestions in Google Translate or fixing maps or improving computed route from A to B.
No one is being paid for that work, but someone is monetizing it.
It's just an opinion, but if the things Google has created and shared into the whole of human knowledge towards the betterment of future societies are still being used in a century for my grandkids (and the rest of humankind) to benefit from, then I think it's better than not having it because a few million people who couldn't have done it themselves said 'no' over a pittance.
I can't speak for you, but my dying thoughts won't be a sour reflection on all of opportunities to monetize my existence I might have missed.
Do they really share it, though? You can't download and reuse data from Google Maps or Street View the way you can from OpenStreetMap, say.
I'm not saying this is a fatal problem. Google Maps is a lot more popular than OSM so the free-with-ads closed source approach clearly has a lot going for it. But the data isn't public, they own it.
I've never personally hired a professional translator and I don't think I would if I was going to travel to a country where the majority of people don't speak English because I assume a professional translator is expensive. However if I know I have free access to google translate which will be useful enough for me to navigate by myself I would be much more likely to go on such a trip.
I'm sure some jobs will be lost but at least for middle class people who arnt able to afford translators the technology will be used to communicate better without affecting professional translators.
There are plenty of similar professions that exist but not utilized by the middle/lower class due to cost. I would love to hire a interior decorator, as I'm sure plenty of home owners would, but I haven't due to the cost and likely never will. If Google (or any other company) offered a service where I put photos of my home online and gave me a free layout with online links to purchase the furniture I would be thrilled and no interior decorator would be out of a job because I wasn't going to pay for one anyway. I think its all about the level of quality you want.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
and some don't, so this point of view is arguable, to say the least.
Regardless, translation is an intellectual work, driving (depending on the point of view), isn't. Same goes for city guides; people doesn't necessarily prefer an electronic device to a human.
It was essentially "OK Google" for dumb phones.
For anyone not familiar, 411 (in the US at least) was the directory service number. You could call it to get things like what time a restaurant was open until. Directions to the airport. Etc.
Doesn't help that I only see it on fairly shady websites, same kind that use adf.ly, pop-unders and other obnoxious monetization schemes.
Its a small rebellious act of mine (that is for moot because I'm sure they give the same captcha to other users for verification)
Expect to see more of this.