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first published: 2016/12/15, last updated: 2016/12/15

why this site?

when we launched recaptcha.sucks website we wrote:

over the years we got seriously pissed off with google search results for 'captcha' and related queries:

• conveniently burying recaptcha competitors with 'thick' captcha-dedicated sites on the n-th page of search results, and
• conveniently highlighting 'thin' captcha-irrelevant sites, like 7+ months old 'latest news', just happening to carry a favourably-spinned 'captcha is broken' article,
• and as of time of this writing (2015/07/14), things are getting worse -- not better.

over the years we got tired of google's overzealous spin-doctors keeping crapping about:

• 'inaccessibility of captchas' while conveniently forgetting to tell you that accessibility-wise -- recaptcha is by far the worst offender around -- by design incompatible with wcag guidelines and section 508 regulations.
• 'captcha being broken' while conveniently forgetting to tell you that in fact it was recaptcha being broken -- and occasionally 'fixed' only hours or minutes before security conferences.

hopefully, recaptcha.sucks will help focus the minds of relevant google executives on the fact that in various jurisdictions all over the world it might not be exactly legal to use monopoly in one market to gain an advantage in another market -- and make them go out and start asking some people some serious questions.
who knows, they might even find the source of the problem -- and fix it before brussels does.

there were many reasons; and as time was passing it looked like there is just more and more of them.
however, all of those reasons belong to one or more of the following three groups:

• google's systematic abuse of its monopolies (organic search, paid search) in order to gain an unfair advantage in the captcha market,
• google's persistent spread of fud (fear, uncertainty, doubt) about captchas in general,
• google's persistent misrepresentations of recaptcha.

however, the monopoly abuses (antitrust violations) were the huge primary reason.
little else we could do about them, other than just suing google, what wasn't really our style.
and we see lawsuits more as the weapons of the last resort than as a preferred way to proceed.

the other two groups of reasons were significant annoyances indeed; but just by themselves probably would not provoke this.

then nocaptcha was released, and the way it was promoted by google could be described only as lies, damn lies, and nocaptcha marketing.
describing nocaptcha recaptcha promotion as misrepresentation is not just an understatement -- it is almost an act of mercy.

and then one day .sucks domains went on sale. recaptcha.sucks among them.
we perceived it as an asymmetrical asset we needed in order to send a message to the google executives.
and we bought it on the very first day of sale.

recaptcha.sucks v1: the naive one

well, the original intentions were naive.

to set up a forum and/or wiki and to open it up for everyone who:

• does not like recaptcha, or
• does not like google search results for 'captcha' and related queries, or
• is a journalist looking for what to ask google's spin-doctors and executives, or
• has an interest in free-speech sites on .sucks domains, and wish to follow how the things with recaptcha.sucks are going to be unfolding.

to wait and see if recaptcha.sucks will be buried in search results too, when the message is going to be heard in mountain view (if at all), what ameliorating actions are going to be taken (if any), and then to decide what to do next.

a sort of a warning shot across the bow -- that didn't work at all.
it was based on the flawed assumption that there is somebody in google who cares.
after all, 'do not be evil' they said. weren't they?

we hoped that some google exec will spot it, and then go around google asking some people some though questions -- and fix the problems.
it didn't happen. tons of googlers have seen it -- but nobody cared.

even worse, google found yet another way to abuse its monopolies -- by censoring recaptcha.sucks ads and suspending recaptcha.sucks website in adwords.
while the ads would be visible to anyone, their primary target audience were supposed to be the google executives themselves. they killed the messenger.

in a parallel track, unrelated to recaptcha.sucks, but related to our adwords ads, a single cease and desist letter accomplished more than 18 months of recaptcha.sucks existence.
the facts that the letter was written by an angry non-lawyer, after several beers, and was served in an unconventional way, did not spoil the party at all.
sad indeed, but at the very least, we learned what language google speaks.

recaptcha.sucks v2: the poisonous one

at the end, we finally picked up the google's subtle and unsaid message: the english does not work -- legalese does.
we might be in an unfamiliar territory, and slow, but we are not stupid, and we can adjust our own behaviour accordingly.

recaptcha.sucks will evolve, it will be significantly expanded, comments and screenshot / image galleries will be added.
it will focus on:

• showing that recaptcha does not seem to be what google spin-doctors claim it is.
• proving that google is willing to break every rule in the antitrust book to force-feed you the service it is losing money at. why?
• forcing google to stop abusing its organic and paid search monopolies to gain an unfair advantage in the captcha market.
• crowdsourcing the investigative and paralegal work that will make it happen.

and in the meantime, the pre-prepared legalese will be piling up.

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