Their captcha is deliberately vindictive against users who don't have google accounts, use firefox and use uBO. For instance, the tile "fade in" lasting severa

Their captcha is deliberately vindictive against users who don't have google accounts, use firefox and use uBO. For instance, the tile "fade in" lasting several seconds that plays absolutely no role in making the captcha difficult for ML to solve, existing only to punish real humans who don't comply with Google's surveillance system. So in light of that, I see no reason to not assume malice in this case too.