Google is ditching CAPTCHA in favor of a simple check box, according to a blog post on their website.For those unaware, CAPTCHA is that annoying little box with a sequence of nonsensical letters and numbers, and a necessary evil for secure customer identification. But in recent years, the technology has failed to foil Internet robots, and users in general find it to be a pain and nuisance. In fact, today’s spammers are able to decipher 99.8% of CAPTCHA sequences, according to Google.Google also decided to de-emphasize the use of text-based CAPTCHAs after some accidental research found that 90% of Google robots were able to decipher the blurry house numbers found in Google’s StreetView images. This led to more research on CAPTCHA as a whole and subsequently to the development of the new API and it’s “check box” format.Instead of asking for a sequence of nonsensical numbers and letters, users are simply prompted to check a box answering the question “Are you a robot?”

In the blog post, reCAPTCHA project manager Vinay Shet states: “For years, we’ve prompted users to confirm they aren’t robots by asking them to read distorted text and type it into a box…But, we figured it would be easier to just directly ask our users whether or not they are robots.”As a back-up protocol, if the underlying algorithm thinks the user may be a robot, it asks them to complete a simple task, such as matching a picture.Subscription content sites will benefit from this new technology as it’s likely to decrease friction and bounces during user registration or subscriber conversion. And anything that makes the registration process simpler while still protecting businesses from spambots is a win-win to us.