Remember the brou ha ha when Microsoft announced its Smart Tags? Smart Tags would automatically add links into your documents, whether you liked it or not. Well Zeldman reports that the latest Google toolbar does exactly that, for example a street address will link to Google Maps and an ISBN will link to Amazon.
The system is turned off by default, requiring users to clicking an ‘Autolinks’ button to add links to the page. However their is no way to stop Google adding links to your site. At least without running some JavaScript which checks for those links added by Google. I wouldn’t mind so much if the functionality was available through a right-click – this would be a smart addition, but dynamically adding links to the page (which is precisely what happens) amounts to Google re-writing my page, which is unacceptable to me, whether the action is initiated by the user or not.
Jim wrote:
Why is having the feature in a right-click menu acceptable but having it as a link unacceptable? Do you feel the same way about Firefox’s feature that lets you redirect popup windows to new tabs instead? After all, it’s changing websites on the fly, just like Google.
Rich wrote:
Jim – having the feature in a right-click menu would be adding functionality to the browser, not adding links to my web page; a subtle but important difference. The same applies to Firefox’s tabs for popup windows.
The key factor here is to modify behaviour not content.
Andy Budd wrote:
That really sucks. This may very well turn the web (or at least bloggers and other content providers) against Google. I know I don’t want Google profiting from links to Amazon it’s placed on my site without permission. Especially if I’m linking to Amazon myself from elsewhere in the post.
Brent wrote:
My initial reaction was similar but did you check out this post by Anil Dash last week?
Anil makes some interesting points that may make you slightly less hostile to the concept of AutoLinks. I’m still not completely convinced that they’re a good thing but the article is food for thought.
Jim wrote:
Perhaps the popup redirection was a bad example. What about the BBC News Wikiproxy that is linked to by this very site?
Bob Trotta wrote:
You think that’s bad, check out what they want to do with liquid information: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,66382,00.html
“Further, every link can point to more than one place, pulling up all kinds of background context from the web as a whole.”
Sam wrote:
Since when was a user controlling what they want to see in their web experience “unacceptable”. This is the web; if you want to control everything about the final product, maybe you should get into print.
Rich wrote:
Get down off your high horse, Sam. There’s a big difference between experience and content. I’m not talking about controlling the user experience, I am talking about a third party controlling my content, particularly when it’s to their own financial benefit.
Have a read of Danny Sullivan’s Google Toolbar’s AutoLink & The Need For Opt-Out for more reasons as to why this is an important distinction.
Since Jim brought it up it’s also worth putting the BBC News Wikiproxy into context. If I was the BBC I’d probably be a bit miffed about this but there are a few reasons in its favour – it’s not the BBC site, it’s a proxy; it’s a low key experiment; it’s making a point about the BBC’s hyperlink policy (they don’t put links inline); it links to a neutral source of information (Wikipedia); no third party is making money out of the BBC’s content.
Let me re-iterate that I’m not averse to Google providing means to getting further information from a page – a context menu or toolbar area would be perfect for this and I’d welcome it. It’s just that adding links straight into my page, without giving me an opt-out mechanism, crosses the line of acceptibility.
Jim wrote:
> Im not talking about controlling the user experience
Danny Sullivan is:
“I don’t care if the user thinks adding links to my pages will make things better for them. As a publisher, I want to be able to override a tool that tries this.”
He’s saying he wants DRM for websites.
Somebody else said it best (Yoz?):
If I buy a magazine, I can rip it up, highlight words, cross out words and put in others, and do whatever else I like with it.
I can even sell scissors, highlighters, pens, etc to people who want to do it to their copies.
Some people don’t like Page 3 girls. I can sell stickers to people that cover up the nipples in their newspapers.
I can even make the labels say something like “stop looking at this and read your Bible!”. My local church could even pay me to distribute these labels.
In any other setting, any other media, it would be seen as sheer nonsense to even question whether I’d be allowed to do that. Of course I should be allowed!
Somehow, when it comes to the web, it’s taboo to alter a page. Why is this?
PS: would you have similar reservations about the BBC News Wikiproxy if it was a Firefox extension that you activated by clicking a button?
Cindy wrote:
In response to the comment about purchasing a magazine and then using it as you see fit – The key here is you purchased the magazine. You can tear it up, mark it up, etc. What you may not do is use the copyrighted material without permission of the author/publisher.
In the case of a website, specifically my site, I do not charge you to visit the site, nor do I have paid advertisers. I make no money, but I would object to another entity getting revenue from links it inserted into my site. I do not mean a mod to the browser, I mean altering the pages I have created and my content.
The crux of the matter is not about what but where. Incorporate this into the next Google toolbar. Give the user the opportunity to click a link on the toolbar to see these links. Do not modify my content in anyway, unless of course Google would like to pay for placing advertising content on my site.
John Magnus wrote:
I’ve written a rather lengthy rant about this issue on my blog that you or (your readers) might be interested in. Although I raises few points that haven’t been voiced elsewhere, I’ve also posted a script that removes the malarkey (and fixes a couple of issues with the script that’s currently “floating” around.). Also some info on what’s being modified and how to “capture” it…
minimal design wrote:
“He’s saying he wants DRM for websites.”
DRM is related to RIGHTS, meaning copyrights and how the work is licensed. It’s about what the end user is allowed to do with what he got. If you want to compare what Google does with website links and, let’s say a DRM protected CD, a more appropriate oversimplification would be that Google changes the lyrics of a song before it’s published and you get to listen to it. Sure the music sounds the same… But whoever creates something should be able to stay in control of it until it is published. As it was said before, it’s about content – no one should be allowed to modify, even slightly, what I want to say. And links on the web are as much part of the content as the words you using, a sentence could mean two very different thing depending on how the words link to something else. I should be the only person who decides what I want to link to.
“If I buy a magazine, I can rip it up, highlight words, cross out words and put in others, and do whatever else I like with it.”
If you compare that example to what Google does, then the magazine would be modified BEFORE you buy it… The publishing part of a site really happens when it is sent from the server to your browser. If stuff is added to it before it reaches you, it’s that same as a third party adding articles between the time it’s pressed and the time you buy it – then again, there’s no link in paper media so that’s kinda of twisted to compare them from the start…
“I can even sell scissors, highlighters, pens, etc to people who want to do it to their copies.”
Feel free to sell text editors so people can modify my site on their computer at home, to their personal liking. But if you buy all the copies of my magazine, add stuff to it, and resale them as a “better” version, prepare yourself for trouble…
“Some people don’t like Page 3 girls. I can sell stickers to people that cover up the nipples in their newspapers.”
Fell free to sell whatever you want so individual can modify my site AFTER it reached them in its original form.
I can even make the labels say something like “stop looking at this and read your Bible!”. My local church could even pay me to distribute these labels.
yeah, and then people can stick them on their computer screens… ;)
In any other setting, any other media, it would be seen as sheer nonsense to even question whether I’d be allowed to do that. Of course I should be allowed!
You right, except the last part ;) Of course no one should be allowed to modify content of anything BEFORE it’s published.
Jim wrote:
Cindy & Minimal Design:
I don’t think either of you are aware as to how this tool works.
The user goes to a page. They see it completely unmodified. Then they choose to click a button that adds links.
Cindy, you said:
“Give the user the opportunity to click a link on the toolbar to see these links.”
That’s exactly what this tool does.
Minimal Design, you said:
“Of course no one should be allowed to modify content of anything BEFORE its published.”
It’s not possible for this tool to modify the content before it is published. The end user always sees the unmodified form first.
I wish people would actually take the time to learn what it is they are criticising instead of mindlessly repeating what they’ve heard from somebody else.
Cindy wrote:
I think you missed my point, perhaps I was not clear. I do not want my content altered at all. As long as when the user clicks on the link it either opens a window or opens on the toolbar itself there is no issue.
Under no circumstances should an outside company or anyone have the right to modify my content with out my persmission.
Jim wrote:
> Under no circumstances should an outside company or anyone have the right to modify my content with out my persmission.
Without wanting to sound rude: tough. The world doesn’t work that way. Once it’s in my possession, I can alter it however I see fit, using whatever tools I like. What’s more, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
You might as well be a book author who is trying to stop people from underlining words, complaining about the evil pen makers.
Chris Moores wrote:
There is a university idea of turning the internet into a wikipedia style service that makes everyword a hyperword, it sounds irritating but I the service is quite clever as you have to hover over a word to get a menu up so it only gets annoying if the mouse is hovering over words.
adipex wrote:
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