# Why am I suddenly getting CAPTCHA demands on google searches? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2018, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790 "2018-12-08T08:42:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/1 "2018-12-08T08:42:54Z")
All of a sudden I am getting CAPTCHA screens whenever I search for something on Google. This just began about an hour ago. And it’s for stuff I regularly search for like news articles, SDMB, etc… And it’s on my home computer I’ve had for years. I ran a virus/spyware scan and it came up empty. And I cleared my cookies, cache, history, and so on. It still does it. WTF? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/2 "2018-12-08T10:35:01Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > All of a sudden I am getting CAPTCHA screens whenever I search for something on Google. This just began about an hour ago. And it’s for stuff I regularly search for like news articles, SDMB, etc… And it’s on my home computer I’ve had for years. > > I ran a virus/spyware scan and it came up empty. And I cleared my cookies, cache, history, and so on. It still does it. WTF? 😕 I occasionally get brief spurts of that. IIRC the message implies that my IP address appears to be doing automated searches, or something like that. What is especially annoying when it happens to me is that after passing the Captcha, I just get a second Captcha, then a third, and so on. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/3 "2018-12-08T12:38:44Z")
Its still possible that you have a virus that’s using you to defeat captchas so it can use the answer for spam purposes. Check, and re-check, and Google and re-check, is what I’d do, simply because I hate being used. YMMV. I have a cheap TMobile plan, I only have like 5 Gigabytes a month, and then another 5 from using my phone as a hotspot. I may have more, like 7.5 each, or something. Doesn’t matter – towards the end of the month, they start clamping down my rate. That can make bogosity like this turn up for me as well. I get captchas from Google, or I get notifications that IP isn’t secure, or the the SDMB isn’t configured for secure browsing. But the problem goes away after I switch to the free internet from the library. So I think an internet slowdown may make your browser, or perhaps your ISP act weird like this. So see if it goes away when you have really good internet from another source. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/4 "2018-12-08T14:10:19Z")
I’ve gotten that before, usually right after I’ve done a lot of searches including operators for specific sites or dates. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/5 "2018-12-08T14:58:24Z")
Some of the CAPTCHAs I get ask me to identify pictures with road signs, vehicles or store fronts in them. Somewhere I heard a rumor that this is meant as a way to train the computers being built for Google (now Waymo) for autonomous vehicles. Anyone know if that’s true? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2018, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/6 "2018-12-08T16:18:47Z")
Goggle started that with me as well. Sometimes I download a lot of potential research material to be read in detail offline. It only asks once in any given session, though. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2018, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/7 "2018-12-09T00:25:17Z")
Are you on a VPN? That happens when I’m on a VPN, because presumably the previous user of the IP address was doing something fishy. ---
**Author:** ![Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bcef8e/32.png) [@Petrobey\_Mavromihalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrobey_Mavromihalis)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/8 "2018-12-10T04:45:32Z")
Yes I get this a lot and use VPN a lot (I live in China). ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/9 "2018-12-10T05:34:33Z")
I’m not using a VPN. I just think it’s odd that I would start getting this all of a sudden on a computer and provider I’ve had for years. And I wasn’t looking up anything “fishy”. But what exactly does that mean? Why would Google care what I’m looking up in the privacy of my own home? ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/10 "2018-12-10T06:13:36Z")
Exact same thing is happening to me ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/11 "2018-12-10T07:18:25Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Why would Google care what I’m looking up in the privacy of my own home? They don’t care _what_ you’re looking up, they just care that you’re an actual person doing individual searches and not a bot scraping their data. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2018, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-am-i-suddenly-getting-captcha-demands-on-google-searches/825790/12 "2018-12-10T14:30:51Z")
Thanks for bringing this up; I’ve seen this a time or two myself and wondered what it was about. Really annoying, as I would call up a page and get photos of cars and street signs over and over and over again. Jenny your humble TubaDiva Administrator