Misc. Ramblings

Google is getting slammed for a new "feature" it is planning to add to their popular tool bar. The feature, called AutoLink, would alter web pages by inserting its own links onto the page (read an eWeek article here for more details).

I don't know about you, but this just creeps me out. Perhaps it shouldn't since it isn't that much farther down that road than if you use their search engine and the advertising on the right panel changes based on what you are searching on.

But, in fact, when Microsoft tried something similar with their so called smart tags, the resulting cries of outrage were heard around the world. As for me, I don't see how this feature is different from adware/spyware that hijacks your browser and inserts its own links onto Google web page searches (other than you are accepting it, knowingly or not).

It was bad enough when Google's Gmail scanned your emails and inserted their own links based on the contents of the, you know, the private email sent to you. But now they want to insert stuff into any web page?. Where does this stop? If you Google your hard drive, would they insert links to pages similar to files it found? Is this a good thing? I dunno. You decide.

As for me, I don't use their tool bar so it doesn't matter to me. But if you use it, does it matter to you?