As BBC News reported back in January 2013, ticketing retail giant Ticketmaster was one of the first major companies to do away with one of the most hated chores of the modern world wide web – the dreaded captcha system.

The system, which requires users to type in often difficult to read words or numbers into a prompt box in order to prove they are human and not a bot program, are often a source of discontent for web users.

In 2013, the ticketing giant decided that endlessly refreshing captchas in order to find one you’re actually able to decipher is a cruel trick to play on customers and replaced it with an easier system where users write simple phrases.

Ticketmaster employed technology created by New York start-up Solve Media, who were able to incorporate advertising into the captcha system, using a combination of digital cues to work out whether a customer was a real person.

As Techdirt noted, the system began to operate as a sort of Q&A, simultaneously involving advertising and market research. “For instance, you might be given the name of a well-known brand of gum followed by a request to input what the brand name is commonly associated with,” they wrote.

Users who were once annoyed at having to input indecipherable characters just to get tickets to a gig were apparently delighted at being forced to respond to ads instead, with Ticketek reporting “an uptick in fan satisfaction”.

Meanwhile, Solve Media’s software was named one of the ‘Top 10 Digital Advertising Innovations of 2010’ by tech and culture hub Mashable. Even we have to admit it’s pretty clever – you’re essentially holding tickets hostage until users watch an ad.

Well, according to one outraged Reddit user, Ticketmaster have begun taking things a step further, with Aussie user DaNReDaN posting a screenshot of a video ad that he was allegedly confronted with when recently attempting to purchase tickets on the site.

Before he was able to pay for his purchase, DaNReDaN was presented with an ad sponsored by the Kellogg’s breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain detailing the life of Nathan Charles, a rugby player born with cystic fibrosis (view it below).

DaNReDaN was then asked to enter “Nutri-Grain” before he was allowed to continue with his purchase. Naturally, he wasn’t thrilled about having to sit through a commercial before he could buy show tickets, which can often be a high-pressure situation.

Reddit outrage soon ensued, but luckily, one industrious user explained that it is possible to bypass the ad by requesting a different captcha. “I’ve encountered this video captcha many times and this worked every time. In OP’s case, you’d press ‘New Words,'” the user wrote.

Of course, not everyone was up in arms over Ticketmaster’s latest revenue ploy. “People had a sook when scalpers were taking all the available tickets, and now they’re having a big whinge over this. People will just complain about any goddamned thing,” wrote one user.

Others remained skeptical. “Just looks like a money grab to me disguised as an attempt to stop bots,” wrote another Redditor. Meanwhile, user olivefilm speculated over whether the retailer’s increase in ad revenue could see savings passed on to consumers.

“Then they will reduce their fees right? Charge those big FMCG brands advertising and pass the saving on to us! Oh well I can hope,” they wrote. “If only they wouldn’t be so evil and charge a $10 ‘delivery fee’ to print you own ticket. Or did some government agency stop them overcharging?”

While we all agree that bots are a scourge and ticket retailers should do everything in their power to eliminate them, and while it remains to be seen what impact the new captcha system will have on Ticketmaster’s practices, is it right to force consumers into viewing an ad before they can buy your product?

After all, this isn’t like television where a viewer can simply change the channel, switch off, or avoid watching altogether – this is Ticketmaster telling users, “If you want our tickets, you have to go through our advertisers.”

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