Captcha Advertising

Explaining a regular captcha is hard enough. I can see my-self explaining this:

Me: You see... you need to enter the quoted text in the small box below.

User: The text? Oh ok... (enters: Dish Networks)

Me: Oh no, I'm sorry I meant the "quoted" text, below all the fancy graphics and logo. The one with the quotes. You have to enter it without the quotes.

User: Oh ok... So, I just enter the text without the quotes? I thought I did that already.

Me: No, no. Just enter the letters within the quotes. i.e: "Hello" you need to enter Hello.

User: Oh I see...

User: Ok, so I enter the quoted text, without the quotes in the box below? (user clicks on the black box where it says: ENTER THE QUOTED TEXT

Is not working. I does not let me enter the text. What's wrong?

Me: Actually is in the empty box below, where it says "Your Answer"

User: My answer? My answer to what? Nobody has asked any questions? Do they want me to says yes or no to the discount?

Me: ... wait one second... (calls developers: take the captcha out of the form. Pronto)

The problem is that for captcha to work properly, there has to be an enormous number of possible captcha words and phrases.

If people use advertising slogans for captcha text, then the advertising execs will only be able to come up with a very limited number of slogans (they are, after all, only human and from my experience they are not the type of humans that work too hard). And if there is a limited number of captcha texts, the hackers will easily program bots to recognise them.

A German startup is doing this, too: http://www.captchaad.com/

IIRC Microsoft even tried to patent this. The article's claim that only one company is working "as the middleman between advertisers and webmasters in order to display CAPTCHA ads" seems slightly exaggerated ;)

This has been pitched as an idea in the past; I don't think it really took off then either.

One of the problems is that users have become accustomed to skipping over ads - they either miss the captcha entirely first go (not great) or get put off by having to engage in the ad (also not great).

The main flaw in this plan is the context in which Captcha's are generally used -- sign-up forms, comment forms etc.

They're part of a deliberate user action, not part of a general browsing behaviour.

People mid-stream in a sign-up form are very unlikely to follow an ad -- or if they do so, it might be at the cost of the primary activity.

I think it's for reasons similar to this that Facebook ads perform so poorly (apparently).

I agree that asking people to enter a phrase from the advertisement is not going to be a very secure CAPTCHA test because the advertiser is never going to be able to come up with enough different phrases to make a captcha that will be secure against brute force attacks. Also, if they want their dish network ad displayed often (to get more impressions) then again it's basically a static image that is not changing often enough to keep out bots.

An alternative could be this: http://www.confidenttechnologies.com/products/confident_CAPT...

The user is presented with a grid of images. The pictures themselves and their location on the grid change with each session. A website could insert just a few of their own images within the grid, as a way of reinforcing brand recognition without being blatant advertising that forces the user to enter a slogan. For example, if it's a sporting goods website, they could include some images of the items they sell among the stock photos. Because it's a grid of images that changes every time, there would be a huge amount of combinations possible, making it a stronger captcha against brute force attacks from bots.

Successful advertising actually makes you feel something. This is just another example of an uninspired ad stuffed in someone's face.

I'm starting to get a disconcerting feeling because of these ubiquitous ads in everything and everywhere. No wonder we become desensitized - it's the only way our brain can cope with the information overload.

A short film (Logorama, Oscar winner in 2009) that explains it much better than I ever could: http://vimeo.com/10149605

The companies that have the biggest budgets to test placements like this -- at high CPMs -- are brand advertisers (Gap, Coke, GM etc). Where this product fails for me is that I don't see a brand advertiser paying money to deliberately associate their brand with one of the most irritating friction points on the web.

Tho some do advertise at toll booths: http://www.e-470.com/images/plazawrap.jpg So maybe there's a fool willing to slap an ad anywhere it will stick.

I imagine the sign-up rate for those sites will decrease for lets say 80% because every AdBlock user will not be able to see the Captcha. But I don't really know how this would work...

Forcing people to write the ad contents is a pretty big step from passively displaying ads - by having to write it out you are forced to think about it on some level, rather than being able to ignore it if you choose. Its going to have some subconscious impact at the least - which I makes the whole idea ethically questionable to me. Mild brainwashing is brainwashing all the same...

@hristov I'm sure if you get creative you can come up with ways to have "an enormous number" of captcha's. If you take the Dish Network example you could say "what is quoted text" + this "number". That just one example that comes to mind. @paraschopra I think you have a good point my mind set is annoyed when I have to fill out a captcha.

The original article: http://www.techi.com/2010/04/captcha-advertising-coming-soon...

Reminds me of when companies use the skill testing question required by law for prize-winning promotions to self-promote. I'm not sure this would be as effective for non-household-names though.

I would feel reluctant to use 3th party services like e.g. recaptcha or the example mentioned on a business website because I have a feeling it might come across as unprofessional.

I don't think this is ever going to work. While solving captchas, people are in different mental mode than while looking at ads.

This is a great idea, advertising/monetization meeting spam prevention.

Some links I've gathered on the subject: http://www.blackhat-seo.com/2010/captcha-advertising/

I found 4 companies that are currently providing some kind of captcha advertising. It's an old idea that is being rediscovered from time to time.

I don't think you need an enormous amount of words/slogans/phrases. You can use different non-linear transformations on your content, different fonts, different layouts and so on. You can also fall back on a regular captcha, either for effectiveness or to not annoy users too much.