Are we human, or are we browser?
Based on a 20-month study, Solve Media found that a projected 10 percent of all online traffic isn’t human. Between January 2011 and August 2012, the company observed 100 million unique visitors a month across 5,000 publishers and found that one out of every ten users wasn’t a user at all, but a bot.
As social becomes the dominant force on the internet, so identity will become more and more important.
Although this survey was carried out by CAPTCHA manufacturer Solve Media, CAPTCHA’s are an inadequate solution. It’s not fair on the user to be constantly asked to prove that they are human.
Browser manufacturers can help solve the problem of ensuring we are who we say we are online by making authentication part of the browser. Mozilla’s Persona project looks like a step towards this, and it will be interesting to see how Google and Microsoft respond.