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Fighting Ad Blockers With Captcha Ads
krou writes "Living in an ad-free internet thanks to ad blockers? That could be a thing of the past if software firm NuCaptcha has their way by making captchas into ads. 'Instead of the traditional squiggly word that users have to decipher, the new system shows them a video advert with a short message scrolling across it. The user has to identify and retype part of the message to proceed. Companies including Electronic Arts, Wrigley and Disney have already signed up.'"
Really? Even if these captchas actually turn out easier to use than the current ones? I mean no more guesstimating which bit of what overlapping miscoloured squiggles belong to which potential letters (and is that a 1 or an l? O or 0?), just a quick message and an easily identifiable word within it.
Or, to rephrase the question: would you oppose the system if it wasn't about ads but just another innovation in captchas? Assuming, of course, that this innovation does actually make captchas less of a hassle. Just sayin' that this isn't necessarily bad and you might find that the benefits outweigh the agony of having to listen to an ad message (is that really so bad?).
Personally though, I don't think it's going to work, neither as an ad nor as a captcha. If it's based on videos with meaningful messages (ads!), the possibilities for remixing and regenerating random captchas is going to be severely limited. Which means it will take no time at all until someone has built a plugin that builds a database of these and simply looks up the correct answer in the background.
Because then I would cry bloody murder, since to target ads you first of all have to find out more about me than I'm willing to give to advertising companies.
Also, tasteful, inoffensive ads are considered "worthless" by advertisers because they, well, they are tasteful and inoffensive, they get overlooked and are easily forgotten.
Instead, they try to force ads onto us. Ignoring the old tale of sun and wind competing over who can make a man take off his coat (in a nutshell, wind tries to blow it off the guy but he only pulled it tighter around his body, while sun shined and convinced the guy by giving him what he wanted, i.e. warmth, that the coat is unnecessary), which fits more aptly here than anywhere else: Ads have to give you what you want! Else they may be as invasive as can be, they will still not result in the desired spectator action: Going out and buying whatever is advertised. Worse, an invasive ad for a product I might want to have will immediately receive a negative reaction because it interrupted whatever else I wanted to do at the time, or, worse, startled me and hence got connected with a negative emotion, something that it entirely deadly for any kind of advertising.
A good ad would do both: Be noticable, but not distracting and not a roadblock on my way to the content I wanted. Pop-unders are already a pretty good solution, since you get to notice them once you are done looking at the content you wanted to see, are in a relaxed mood and maybe open to look at something else.
Personally, I think advertisers who think that cramming stuff down my throat think pretty lowly of their own product. It almost seems like they themselves would not want it, so they assume you have to sell it hard so anyone would would at least "accidently" buy it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.