Online retailers like Walmart implement challenges to distinguish between legitimate human users and automated bots. These challenges, often referred to as CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), present tasks that are easy for humans to solve but difficult for current AI algorithms. A common example involves identifying objects in images or typing distorted text.
The primary benefit of these measures is to protect the website from malicious activities. Bots can be used to create fake accounts, scrape data (such as product prices), submit spam, or even launch denial-of-service attacks. By preventing automated access, Walmart safeguards its resources, ensures fair access for genuine customers, and maintains the integrity of its data. The use of these tests has evolved alongside advancements in bot technology, requiring increasingly sophisticated methods to differentiate human and non-human activity.
