Judge tosses proposed class action accusing Google of CAPTCHA fraud

90 点作者 pavornyoh超过 9 年前

14 条评论

jonas21超过 9 年前

This bit from the judge's ruling underscores how ridiculous the lawsuit is:> In addition, at oral argument, Plaintiff did not represent that if given leave to amend she could allege that had she known the second reCAPTCHA word was used to assist Google with its other services she would not have completed the reCAPTCHA. To the contrary, counsel represented that he had not asked Plaintiff and he did not know what she would say. (Dkt. No. 60 at 20:23-25.) Such question, of course, should have been asked and answered before this lawsuit was filed and pursued in two states. Regardless, it defies common sense that the answer would be yes.[1] <a href="http://boothsweet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Google-Order-Granting-Dismissal.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://boothsweet.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Google-Orde...</a>

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cbhl超过 9 年前

Distorted text isn't even used in reCAPTCHA all that much anymore -- Google used a Deep Convolutional Neural Network and got over 90% accuracy in reading street numbers in Street View, and 99.8% accuracy in solving distorted text reCAPTCHA (<a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6082" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6082</a>).Most users will just check a "I'm not a robot" box now; and if you do get a test, it will likely be a computer vision / image labeling problem: <a href="https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-you-robot-introducing-no-captcha.html" rel="nofollow">https://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-you-ro...</a>

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Robadob超过 9 年前

Surely the spare word allows the dictionary of potential CAPTCHA words to add a new word for every CAPTCHA solved (sure they probably run them past many users for validation purposes). This effectively allows the CAPTCHA service's dictionary to scale/evolve continuously, preventing an anti-CAPTCHA service from 'learning' the whole dictionary.I thought this was the entire point of re-captcha, so regardless of the 'time necessary to complete' element, their case doesn't seem very well thought out.

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Someone1234超过 9 年前

The judge's argument makes sense to me, and seems right.But I'd argue that the CAPTCHA itself is a greater benefit to the end user than the cost (not just Gmail or Google Maps). If Google had to stop using OCR CAPTCHA tomorrow, they would have to use an alternative, and frankly most of the alternatives are worse. Further still without the ability to hinder bots services like Gmail couldn't exist.Arguing that Gmail is a greater benefit than the CAPTCHA costs to complete is fine, but potentially leaves the gate open to sue later because someone finds a service which they claim doesn't benefit the end user (e.g. paying a bill). Arguing that the CAPTCHA method itself has more benefit than cost completely destroys any future lawsuits.

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xixi77超过 9 年前

Quite a frivolous case, nice to see the legal system working for once.One interesting thing I've learned from the court rule though: apparently software delivered online and through downloads does not qualify as a good or service under the California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act, unlike boxed software delivered on physical media (pp.14-16)

seanwilson超过 9 年前

What a bizarre lawsuit. Even if the CAPTCHA required 30 mins of work for a free gmail account and that work was used for significant gain for Google only, why would you be entitled to compensation?

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hackuser超过 9 年前

What concerns me is the attitude that users can be used and manipulated without their permission or knowledge; they have no choice or right to be informed, in this or in tracking or in many other situations. They are just objects of commerce to the developers, not human beings. This leads to bad practices like widespread confidentiality violations, free-to-play user manipulations [1], and the sorts of manipulation of customers practiced in places like Wall Street.My feeling these days is that either you're on the inside or you're a sucker.(On the level of fairness and justice - I don't know enough to comment on legality - I don't think this particular incident rises to the level of damages. However, Google could just display, In return for our free service, please help our computers read this word! Even Google's computers can't do everything - read more about it <here>. - Why not disclose it if you are doing nothing wrong? If you don't disclose it, you're manipulating people.)[1] <a href="http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/" rel="nofollow">http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-...</a>

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throwaway6845超过 9 年前

> As Google suggests, it strains credulity that Plaintiff or class members would forego access to a free Gmail account and higher quality Google Books or Google Maps because their brief transcription of a single word might, indirectly or directly, facilitate Google’s profit earningCall me a data point to the contrary. I don't use gmail or Google Books at all, and Google Maps rarely. I contribute to OpenStreetMap. It sticks in the craw that whenever I use any Google Captcha-enabled site (even if the site's not owned by Google) I'm helping to increase the quality divide between Google Maps and OSM.

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ChuckMcM超过 9 年前

I have always found Google's way of getting data at the same time as some other activity pretty clever. Offering a free 4-1-1 (directory) service for phones so that you can collect millions of minutes of voice recognition code with various accents? Seemed pretty brilliant to me. Using a security technique to fix hard to fix otherwise OCR errors? also pretty clever.When you think like that, all sorts of interesting things come out. For example, something I don't think anyone has done but could be pretty amazing, put a camera in a store which tracks gazes, set up a set of mannequins with different looks and compare male and female gaze time. Sure it used to be you could change the window display and count sales, this is so much more informative than that.So are you using their interactions for your own benefit? Sure. Is this a new phenomena? No. I totally think the judge called it on this one.

MidoAssran超过 9 年前

Is it just me, or does it seem like Google is being the target of a large number of obscure law suits lately (especially in Europe)?

LoSboccacc超过 9 年前

Ot but arstechnica is now using the shitty mobsweet ad network making reading the article impossible on mobile - and they complain when the users fight back!

ck2超过 9 年前

I wish people would stop feeding the class action lawyers.There are plenty of legit class actions and stuff like this diminishes them.

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gcb0超过 9 年前

At least captcha worked and helped digitalize books.After google bought them and moved to useless training for their image classification, which helps nobody, i was simply banned from contributing to all sites that demand captcha. Because it simply refuses to work with my phone.

hiby007超过 9 年前

So what is the future?Will all site who used google captcha be affected by the result of this case?

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