Something that Irritates Me

Here's something about the Internet that I absolutely hate: At many business websites, when it comes time to check out, you have to type in a pass code of some kind to prove that you're a human and not some robot program that's prowling the Internet and screwing up the business. Having to type this pass code isn't what bothers me per se. What bothers me is that--to keep the robot programs from reading the pass code on the website and entering it themselves, these websites resort to posting those pass codes as images that are distorted. And sometimes they are VERY distorted. Maybe it's just me, because I'm the only person I've ever known to complain about this, but I have a hard time reading something like:




Now, in this particular example (which I pulled off of Ticketmaster's website) I can't tell for sure if that second letter is an "r" or an "n." Both "irked" and "inked" are words. And imagine--as is the case on many web sites--how hard this can be when the sequences of distorted letters and numerals don't spell out ANYTHING. Then you're really in trouble.

I understand why you're doing it, Internet merchants, but there's got to be a better way than blinding your audience.