I don't use Google's AutoLink feature because I don't particularly desire a tool to add links to pages I'm viewing. However, I don't think that it's "bad", in any sense of the word, for such a tool to exist. Some people do think it's bad. Some of these people, who think it is bad, have given reasons why they think it's bad. I think the reasons they give are illogical, and I'm going to explain why it's illogical. It's like they say "I don't like vanilla flavoured ice cream because it causes lung cancer." While I have no problem with people disliking vanilla flavoured ice cream, I have a problem with people disliking vanilla flavoured ice cream for the wrong reasons. With that said, on to the debunking.

If Google puts in links that the original author likes, it is a non-issue. If the tool puts in links that tend to distort the original meaning of the author, present the author in a denigrating fashion or otherwise present the page in a less than favorable manner - according to the author - then it is a bad thing.

Assuming the author and the user both have zero control over what is linked and where it is linked to, it is anyone's guess as to what the results will be of the user clicking the button.

So, let's see. If your page extolling the benefits of Linux is "autolinked" to pages that refer to nothing but "Linux Weenies", some out of date stuff that says how incredibly difficult Linux is to use, and perhaps some Amazon listings for Microsoft software this would not be what you had in mind. However this starts out, this is exactly the sort of thing that can happen. It will likely depend on both the exact formulation of pages and the page rank of pages that are selected for being linked to. How about if the links for DailyKos pages are exclusively made to www.littlegreenfootballs.org? Yes, this is unlikely, but assuming there is no human review of the links being made it is entirely possible.

Now we just have to decide if we like this sort of thing being possible or not.

AutoLink specifically does not do this. It only links ISBN, addresses, UPS shipping codes and Vehicle Identification Numbers. But let's play along for a moment, and assume it links what it considers to be "keywords" to various other sites on the Internet, and the author of the page doesn't like the sites these autolinks points to. Given that the user had to actively click on the "enable AutoLink" button, the user was actively requesting Google to supply links. This is like me reading a site about how great Linux is, saying "Hmm, interesting, but I'd like to hear someone else's point of view, because the author of this site might be a bit biased" and asking my good friend Micheal for his opinion on Linux. He sends me a bunch of links to sites about Linux, I read them, and they say Linux isn't so great. This is good for me because now I'm receiving balanced coverage on the topic, and I've heard arguments from both sides. Now, let's imagine that the author put in some sort of script to prevent Autolink from doing its thing under the pretense that he doesn't want me seeing links to sites that might actually say Linux is bad. Could you imagine how outrage I, as a user, would be if someone told me I'm not allowed to ask my friend Micheal for information on Linux 'cause the author doesn't want me to hear bad things about it? This is another case of authors feeling that their words are beyond reproach that I covered in a previous post.

It isn't what the toolbar does to the webpage, it is what it does to the web. This is the beginning of a slippery slope which will eventually pave the way for Microsoft to embed SmartTags into MSIE.

Fast forward and we will have embedded ads competing with online ads and many of your favorite sites will end up having to close down because they will not be able to pay for their hosting services.

The mom and pops and web publishers will be the first to suffer.

For those who do not know, Microsoft tried to do this back in 2001 and and they will have the green light to try again.

AutoLinks is step one in a plan to funnel billions of dollars to the major portals. In the end, they will be perfectly wedged in between the major retailers and the consumers. This is a very subtle power grab.

I don't understand these "Slippery Slope" arguments. They essentially say "We have to stop something which is not actually in itself bad because in the future, someone may do something related which is bad." In this specific case, the person says we can't allow Google to release it's AutoLink technology because Microsoft's SmartTag technology is bad. Putting aside the debate of whether or not SmartTag is actually bad (let's just concede for the sake of argument that it is, for now), why don't we just allow AutoLink and disallow SmartTag?

As for the "embedded ad" part, Google's AutoLink feature will be an astounding failure if it inserts ads. Remember that a user has to manually click on the "enable AutoLink" button to enable AutoLink. Imagine clicking on a button on Google's Toolbar, and immediately seeing the page you're looking at have advertisement inserted all over the place. You'd probably never click on that button again, right? Unless, of course, you WANT to see ads, in which case, again, the tool is providing a useful service to you.

If a "mom and pop" website suffers because there are "better" sites out there, aren't you doing a disservice to the user by censoring the fact that there might be other sites which might interest the user? If a site sales a book for a certain price, and AutoLink inserts in a link to Amazon.com which sales the book at a lower price, then I'm being done a favor by having that link inserted, because it just saved me some money! If your business plan is "Hope no one realizes that my prices are higher than my competitor's", then you're probably doomed for failure regardless of whether or not AutoLink exists. And if a user wants to support Mom and Pop stores, even at a higher cost, then having a link to Amazon.com isn't gonna stop them from supporting Mom and Pop.

It's not about users editing the content. It's not about business models. It's not about sacred content. It's about one company (one person) having a chance to edit every webpage for millions of people.

Right now if you search for Bush you'll get lots of sites pro and con. Pro sites will have pro links, con sites will have con links. When version 1.1 of Autolinks appears that does more than the 4 types of data it does now then google will now have a chance to make all those links point one way or the other, pro or con. That power will be concentrated in one company. That is the scary part. You think it's scary that people get most of their news from 4-5 TV news sources? Just wait till the day when all online news sources pass through the editing hand of google and google alone.

it's gets worse. Assume google doesn't actually directly control the content but uses pagerank to decide where links to a certain topic go. Then, who ever figures out how to hack pagerank (which many people have already done) will have a HUGE influence in shaping public opinion.

Face it, techinically it's great idea. Instead of manually searching for stuff with my personal phrase of preference (bush president, bush oil, bush iraq) each person deciding for themselves how to search, the convienence of Autolink 1.1 will be "just click that button and I'll get links selected by google as the best links for more info" and everyone else will get the exact same links.

That's NOT good if you want diverse opinions.

Recall again that AutoLink is an optional feature. By clicking on the "enable AutoLink" button, you're essentially saying "I want to know what, in Google's opinion, are the most relevant sites related to the page I'm viewing now." In fact, you're already essentially doing that now. Let's go back in time a year ago. No such thing as "AutoLink" exists yet. Now you want to find out about President Bush. You go to Google and type in "President Bush", and you're presented with a list of site. Google chose these pages as being relevant to the query "President Bush". Maybe there was some site out there that gave a view on Bush that Google didn't approve of, and which doesn't appear on this list. What can you do, if you suspect this is the case? Why, simply use a different search engine, of course. Perhaps Yahoo or MSN Search or something. Now return to the present. You click on the "AutoLink" button, and you now suspect that the links you're looking at are being manipulated somehow by Google (or people who are hacking Google). What can you do? Why, not use AutoLink of course. Install another toolbar. Perhaps the Yahoo Toolbar or the MSN Toolbar.

I don't care what anyone says. It was a shitty idea when Microsoft tried it and it's still a shitty idea now that Google is trying it. I can't wait until one of my clients calls me and says "why are there all these new links on my site!!" so that I can spend the next two weeks adding retarded google opt-out tags to thousands of web pages. The bottom line is that no one should be adding/modifying someone else's content without their permission.

If a client calls you and asking you why there are new links on theirsite, you could ask "Did you install the Google toolbar? Did you click on AutoLink? If so, that's why. Rest assure, though, that your site looks normal to the rest of the world." Most people will "get" this. If your client pays you to add "google opt-out tags to thousands of web pages", then I guess you can either do it, or refuse. But just note (or tell your client to note) that if you start restricting the way users can use your webpages, they might get annoyed with these restrictions and turn to the competitor's sites. Note how people don't like flash sites 'cause they tend to restrict navigation control, or sites which disallow right clicking, or copy and pasting.

As for "no one should be adding/modifying someone else's content without their permission", I want to take a look at the definition of "content". Is it just the textual content? If so, Google doesn't modify it: The text is exactly the same. Is it "the way the page looks"? If so, every web browser displays a web page differently. Notice how some sites only work in IE6, and others only work in Firefox. Think of the text-to-speech based browsers used by blind people. The presentation of the page is different in all these cases. Is the definition of content, in this case, "whether or not a word is a hyperlink, and if so, where that hyperlink points to?" If that's the case, then yes, AutoLink does modify the content, but I argue that there is no reason why a person should be able to modify this kind of "content" without permission. It's nothing that the user couldn't do on his own (copy and paste a keyword into a Google search box). It's just a tool that's saving time and energy and providing an convenient service which the user actively desires (or why else would he click on the "Enable AutoLink" button?)

While I tend to agree with the article's point that AutoLinks aren't inherently evil, I do think they represent a fundamental change to the way the web has worked so far.

Previously, if you saw a link in a page, it was a fairly safe bet that the link was put in by the author. Whereas with AutoLinks, if I understand correctly, that assumption no longer holds.

Maybe that's the real issue here: that of authorship and attribution. If I write a page, and some user-side software inserts inappropriate links, what if naive users blame me for those links?

Perhaps the solution is to make author-created links appear obviously different from software-added ones. Maybe the latter should be in a different colour, or be linked from a separate icon or something? That way, there's no possible confusion, and attribution is clear.

Of course, this is just the latest round of the old content-vs-format argument. The web should be a source of information, with the browser working out the best way to present it; instead, too many web authors want it to be like a book, having total control over presentation as well as content. Which may work reasonably well if everyone has exactly the same display resolution and characteristics, window size, browser, OS, language, sight... but in the Real World(tm), the web can be so much more than that, and control is slowly returning to the hands of users, where it belongs.

As I mentioned in a previous post, "different colours" is the way Microsoft handled it. A technical user can tell the difference between Google AutoLinks and the original links (via the AutoLink icon), but it's not as clear cut as one would like. However, most non-stupid users will be able to realize that they should double check whether the author or Google inserted in an offensive link if that link appeared after they clicked on a button that said "Enable AutoLink" and after reading the message box that appears that says something like "AutoLink will now insert links into the web page you are viewing".

I have no problem at all with a toolbar that places links in web pages on command, and I don't give a shit if the web page owner doesn't want me to. But I can't say I'm keen on having those links be based on who payed Google the most money. Can I change which website gets linked to ISBN numbers, or has that decision been made for me by Google executives?

If you're a web author, make your ISBN numbers link to something. AutoLink doesn't change existing links. If you're a user, write to Google requesting that they let you choose where to link to, or use a different toolbar.

My beef (of what there is..) with the AutoLink is that it possibly violates copyright.

First, all works made are auto-copyrighted in the US.

Second, it's to my understanding (whoever doesnt agree can suck it) that you give a implict copyright permission for someone to READ a webpage that you made. Multiple copies are made through various devices which copy your work. It hits your screen and you read a rendering of the same HTML/Java/XML/.. .

Ok, AutoLink is shimming between the monitor and the network device and MODIFYING the website code, so it's a derived work. Google does not have EXPLICT permission from the copyright owners to modify (with exception to parodies- Weird al and like) any webpage, which is what Google's dowing.

I am not a lawyer, but your webbrowser modifies the content too. If the original author wrote something like <b>hello<>, it won't be displayed as such in your browser. It will be displayed as the word hello in bold. Presumably this isn't a violation of copyright because it's fair use. You, as a user, given access to download this webpage, can reformat it into a version that's easier for you to read. You might not be able to then sell this "modified" version of a web page for money to other people, and that's not what Google's toolbar is doing either.

An idea struck me while thinking about all this content-mod hubbub. What if a devout muslim grew tired of finding his children reading religious news/analysis by unbelievers which do not apply the appropriate tags of respect to figures in his religion, and he developed a similar application which would re-format all pages to insert, after Allah or Mohammed, phrases such as "Whose justice is inexorable" or "May peace be upon his descendants" -- is this type of modification a violation of "the spirit of the web" and worthy of legal threat?

His tool would be a tool like any other, and I don't see why it would be illegal. If people wanted such a tool, they'd download it and use it. If people didn't want such a tool, they wouldn't download and use it. If the guy forced everyone else to use it, then that'd probably be illegal, depending on how forced people (illegal monopoly? Holding people to gunpoint? etc.)