Google Hit With reCAPTCHA Class Action Lawsuit

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A reCAPTCHA class action lawsuit has been filed against Google Inc. by a plaintiff who claims the internet company’s reCAPTCHA software, which is supposedly used to verify if an actual person and not an automated program is attempting to access any given website, takes advantage of Google users by having them decipher texts the Google algorithm cannot read. Google users allegedly have no choice but to transcribe both words if they want to use any of the numerous websites that use Google’s reCAPTCHA service, an alleged violation of consumers’ rights.

The plaintiff claimss Google’s reCAPTCHA software requires users to respond to a prompt by typing two words displayed as two distorted images, one of which is “known” by Google and the company’s reCAPTCHA software.  This “known” word is the one a user must type in correctly in order to meet security measures and access a third-party website. However, according to the Google class action lawsuit:

“The other of the two words, however, serves no security purpose. The second word is an image with text that Google is attempting to transcribe. The sole purpose of the second word is to require the user to read and transcribe the word for Google’s commercial use and benefit, with no corresponding benefit to the user.”

Other CAPTCHA services similar to Google’s only use one word. Google implementation of the second word is allegedly an image word Google’s text recognition cannot decipher accurately on its own and needs human transcription for accuracy. The Google reCAPTCHA class action lawsuit alleges that after enough Google users give identical answers to the reCAPTCHA image, the internet company automatically updates its transcriptions.

Plaintiff Gabriela Rojas-Lozano filed this reCAPTCHA class action lawsuit on Jan. 22, claiming the second word required by the reCAPTCHA serves no security purpose and is in fact a word Google is attempting to transcribe for a third-party client or for other Google services like Google Books or Google Street View. One third-party that allegedly pays for Google’s transcription services is The New York Times, for whom Google transcribes images of archived articles.

Rojas-Lozano further alleges, “In essence, Google operates a highly profitable transcription business built upon free labor, which it deceptively and unfairly obtains from unwitting website users, unjustly enriching itself at the expense of website users responding to reCAPTCHA prompts.” Additionally, Google’s reCAPTCHA service does not inform Google users that the internet company profits from users transcribing work without any compensation to the plaintiff or other website users.

The plaintiff seeks to represent herself and a nationwide Class of all internet users who responded to the reCAPTCHA prompt in order to access a website or a certain website’s feature. A Massachusetts subclass has also been proposed in this Google reCAPTCHA class action lawsuit.

The plaintiff is represented by Thomas G. Shapiro and Patrick J. Valley of Shapiro Haber & Urmy LLP.

The Google reCAPTCHA Class Action Lawsuit is Gabriela Rojas-Lozano v. Google Inc., Case No. 3:15-cv-10160, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.