Ticketmaster abandons Captcha verification system

The leading ticket sales website is to stop using the human verification system Captcha in favour of something more user-friendly.

A screengrab of the Captcha system which is being replaced on Ticketmaster
A screengrab of the Captcha system which is being replaced on Ticketmaster

Ticketmaster will use a new verification system after deciding that Captcha has become too complex for human users to understand easily.

Captcha, the security system which prompts users to enter hard-to-read words in a box to prove they are human, is used by many websites. The system, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test, is used by Ticketmaster to make sure robots do not automatically buy up tickets.

However, as these robots have become more intelligent, the Captcha system has had to use more complex words in order to differentiate between computers and human users. As a result, the system now throws up words which are difficult for genuine customers to understand.

Ticketmaster are now using an alternative software which asks for well-known phrases or simple multiple choice questions. The new system is made by Solve Media, a New York company, and uses a combination of digital cues to work out if the user’s behaviour is human or not. Ticketmaster’s Kip Levin said that the average time to solve a Solve Media puzzle was seven seconds - half of the time taken to solve a Captcha puzzle, and that the vendor has had positive feedback from the system.

Aaron Young from user experience consultancy Bunnyfoot told the BBC that Captcha is “generally speaking one of the most hated pieces of user interaction on the web”, due to the fact it needed several attempts to gain verification.

Young said that an alternative to Captcha would be beneficial to users with accessibility difficulties. Captcha offers an audio option for visually impaired users, but this is “not ideal”. Older online users and those with dyslexia find Captcha particularly difficult to use.

As well as online sales, Captcha is used to prevent spam comments in online publishing on blogs and websites.