Hacker News Reader

Comment by stri8ed | Hacker News Reader

Is it that different from the way Google Analytics works?

It is, in the sense that it's easy to disable Google Analytics by disabling tracking in Firefox, and there's no consequences. If a website uses reCAPTCHA, and you have tracking disabled, the website will break.

Works for me. Assuming one uses something like Privacy Badger and it if it were programmed to block reCaptcha, these websites that require recaptcha will go the way of anti-adblocker popups. People will simply say no and hit the X and go to their competitors.

Sure, my gov (Brazil) uses reCaptcha on the page where you can check your electoral status (For example: if you can vote, where, and if not, what is missing). Where can I find a competitor for that?

Ask your political representative why they're relying on a foreign ad service to manage their government websites.

You should expect a similar impact on your privacy.

The important difference is that unlike Google Analytics, reCAPTCHA v3 is inescapable. You cannot prevent the collection of your personal data, because then you would loose access to large portions of the web.

You can’t block recaptcha!

Why not? Is it always self-hosted?

I think they meant "you can't block reCAPTCHA and still access services behind it" - technically you could add a rule to uBlock Origin etc. to block it, but then you'd be unable to use those site/services.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com