I think the Micro$oft community and others are going to raise so much of a fuss about the new
Autolink feature in google's toolbar that they will face letigation very soon challenging its fairness. Remember Micro$oft ended up scratching its
Smart Tags because of all the Trademark issues. How often do you see M$ back down or pull out of one their projects, not very often. I can't poll this question in this forum, so we can perhaps discuss it instead.
Do you think it is wrong for Google to modify the HTML of a Web page in order to have the added links? One last thing to throw into the mix, M$ already has a
patent , so it should be interesting to see what happens in the future.
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"If I'm on Company A's Web site, and a third party is allowing me to direct me to Company B, there will be some controversy over who controls whose information,
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Whether you supported or opposed Microsoft's efforts to "get away" with this process using SmartLinks, what Google is doing with Autolinks, is the same basic process. The potential for harm to those doing business via their websites, is clearly apparent. If Google is allowed to insert their own links into YOUR content, they then have the ability to steal business from you by driving traffic from your site to a competitor's site. This is exactly what Microsoft tried to do with SmartLinks, with words being sold to highest the bidder and where hypertext links were generated by SmartLinks, without the knowledge or consent of the owner.
Google may not be selling words to the highest bidder (for Autolinks) YET, but what is to stop them from doing so in the future?
We all recoginze that the major search engines sell advertising, and that companies purchase/bid on words to become featured sponsors, and thereby achieve featured status within the search site's results. But this process does not result in a change to the way YOUR content is presented to the user who visits YOUR site.
The validity of an owners "Copyright" are being violated here, regardless of how Google proceeds with marketing. The simple fact that they are parsing YOUR content and ADDING references or links to it, IS A VIOLATION OF YOUR COPYRIGHT!
Can anyone say class action! Well, you'd better hurry, 'cause Mr. Bush intent on curbing your rights there as we speak! I wonder if Mr. Cheney owns stock in Google?
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Here is the debate:
Who owns the desktop? Is it the consumers, or is it the web publishers?
Intro of Smart Tags from 2001
AutoLink and SmartLinks
Open Letter to Google March 6,2005
CNet News