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November 06, 2003
W3C Working Draft on Anti-Robot Tests
Posted by Ernest Miller
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been one of the leaders in ensuring the web is accessible to everyone despite disability (Web Accessability Initiative). Now, C|Net News reports that the W3C is concerned about access for the visually impaired being hindered by so-called "robot tests" (W3C criticizes antirobot tests). These tests, which are frequently used by websites for registration purposes, require a visual verfication of text and numerals obscured in an image so that a computer cannot decipher the text, but a human (with our awesome text processing capabilities) can. If you've recently signed up for a Hotmail account or for eBay or something, you've run into one of these tests. The tests have been fairly successful at preventing spammers and other bad actors from accessing protected services. Problem is, the visually impaired are also prevented from accessing these services.
This is a tough problem and I sympathize with both sides. The W3C has put forth a working draft in an attempt to develop some solutions (Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests: Problems and Alternatives).
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Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
1. Brett Bellmore on November 7, 2003 04:01 AM writes...
You know, there does have to be a point where we stop re-aranging the whole of society to make it more convenient for a few damaged people, to the detriment of the healthy majority. And instead make some kind of separate provision for the damaged.
In this case, how expensive would it be to have a service where the image is sent to a human on line, and read out loud by them? And leave the stupid web pages alone... Problem solved, without screwing up life for the majority.
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