Gooogle are being totally dishonest and misleading in their use of reCAPTCHA to digitize house numbers.
"reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows."
"Currently, we are helping to digitize old editions of the New York Times and books from Google Books."
They are lying and they are not benefiting the public interest - which is what reCAPTCHA relies on - they are only benefiting their company and their own shareholders.
You say that as if you're not helping Google with anything else. Every search, every plus, every rating, every interaction helps Google with its business. And in majority of cases, users reap the benefits too and house numbers is one of those—better geographical knowledge is always good. Whether it can be abused is irrelevant to this specific matter. Every piece of information about anything can be abused.
"reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows."
"Currently, we are helping to digitize old editions of the New York Times and books from Google Books."
They are lying and they are not benefiting the public interest - which is what reCAPTCHA relies on - they are only benefiting their company and their own shareholders.