blog.backpage.com

We all know that CAPTCHA, the challenge-response security feature found on most websites nowadays, is a pain. However, most people also understand that it’s a necessary evil. We here at Backpage use it to thwart evil-doers who use spam to peddle their schemes and bots who would seek to exploit our services and harass our users.

After CAPTCHA offended one Backpage user so badly, he claims the very foundation of his company came undone. In fact, in a letter from the users’ attorney, it offended a girl, who was spamming our site performing “data entry work” on behalf of the user, so badly that the traumatic event left his employee shattered and in ruin.

What randomly generated word was the user asked to enter that could generate such chaos, you ask? The most terrible and offensive kind of all; a “slang expression for female genitalia”. At least, that’s what their attorney claims in a poorly written letter he sent us a while back.

As we all know, when fabricating a lawsuit, it is considered bad etiquette to demand anything under a quarter million dollars. Knowing this, the user, being the fine and upstanding businessman he is, has demanded we pay him $320,000 in “damages”.

For those of you keeping score at home that’s THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.

I could go on and on about how the word “pussy” isn’t a word that’s entirely uncommon to hear on network television nowadays or that it wouldn’t be a shock to see it in an elementary school library, but what I really want to know is…does anyone else see the irony here? Come on. Is it just me or is this guy being a pussy?

- Carl

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Misc. News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.