Does Google Play Fair? Part II: Autolinks
With its recent release of the beta of Version 3 of the popular Toolbar for Internet Explorer, Google has walked into a firestorm of negative publicity surrounding its new Autolink feature.
When you download the new version of the Google Toolbar, and enable the Autolink feature, Google will suggest links for addresses (a map), ISBNs (Amazon), VINs (information about the car at CarFax), and tracking numbers (shipping info) on a drop-down list on the Toolbar.
The troubling and controversial part of the program is that when you click the Toolbar button, Google will also "add hyperlinks to the Web page in the browser." I've quoted the phrase "add hyperlinks to the Web page in the browser" because, of course, Google cannot actually add code to a Web page residing on a remote server. (You can verify this by viewing the source of a web page to which Autolinks has done its thing. It will appear unchanged, without the Google-added hyperlinks.) What the Toolbar in fact does is process the original Web page so that Internet Explorer displays a version to you with added links, but it doesn't change any original code. Still, to a casual person surfing the Web, this distinction won't make any difference: the Web page will appear to have had links added.
Here's a page from eVirtus!Net with some good technical information about what is going on, and a JavaScript to block it on your Web pages, and another script from SeachGuild that blocks Google Autolinking.
Google notes that the Autolinking feature is very opt-in (you have to first download the Toolbar, you have to run with Autolinking turned on, and you have to click the Toolbar button to get the links "apparently" inserted). Also, Autolinking is not performed on information that was already linked (for example, if you have an ISBN on your site that is linked to Barnes and Nobles, Google won't change the link to Amazon).
As a researcher who views many Web pages, I find Autolinking occasionally a little convenient, but my preference is to view pages as they were written. As a Web publisher Autolinking concerns me: I want my pages to be viewed the way I wrote them. If I link an ISBN to Amazon, I will use my affiliate id (not a generic Google autolink), and if I don't link it, I probably have a reason.
Like any juggernaut, Google doesn't have to ask permission. The impact of the current Autolink hijacking is small: users have to decide to use the feature via multiple opt-ins, and the information hijacked is relatively minor. You even get to supply an alternate map supplier (MapQuest or Yahoo! Maps) if the Google Maps leave you as underwhelmed as they do me. But as a publisher, I'm concerned that Google has started down a road that will lead to modifying my apparent content and/or redirecting my advertising links. This worries me.
Posted by Harold Davis at March 10, 2005 2:41 PM
