Where Does Microsoft Want You to Go Today?

blenderking sent in this Wall Street Journal story about Microsoft's new "Smart Tags" - auto-linking to Microsoft websites in any web page you visit. "From the article: "In effect, Microsoft will be able, through the browser, to re-edit anybody's site, without the owner's knowledge or permission, in a way that tempts users to leave and go to a Microsoft-chosen site -- whether or not that site offers better information." My web site is about margarita recipes....what is Microsoft going to do...offer a visitor to my site a better recipe on their site?" Another reader sent in a CNET article on the same subject.

Comments

Who says the end user will be aware of this?

[Tim Macinta]

It sounds to me like it would be pretty easy for the end user to distinguish between links that I've put there, and links that the browser generated to sites that MS thinks I might be interested in.

You are assuming way too much clue on behalf of the user. I frequently get email sent from a form on my web page where the senders ask questions about completely different websites apparently thinking that my site is the same as these other sites they were on because they followed a link from those sites and ended up on mine. These people aren't going to know what the difference between a regular link and a squiggly purple link signifies. Unless they have been trained to know (and you should assume that most people won't be), how is the end user supposed to know that squiggly purple links have been added by the browser and aren't part of the site? This is something that only technically savvy people are likely to recognize (as pathetic as that sounds).

I desperately hope there is some way to disable this from an individual webpage or for an entire site. Even for the "clueful" end users who do know the significance of the special links, I don't want this anywhere near my site which has negative commentary on Microsoft as it could totally distort the meaning. I don't want my site to be a springboard for Microsoft propaganda, especially since that is exactly what I'm trying to counteract on my site.

Re:It's obvious it's legal, it's Microsoft...

[Genom]

Most of them will not know, or do not care if the sites are Microsoft-influenced. After all, they probably use almost only Microsoft-products already, and this will misguide them even more.

Therein lies the problem with this.

Let's say that for speed, the "database" of words to "smart link" is stored on the client side, by the OS, in some specially encrypted, obscured DLL file (along with a couple "crucial" system components to make sure clued users don't simply remove it.

Let's say one of the links points to a page on MS's website.

Let's say MS does a drastic redesign of their website, and moves a lot of stuff around, including the page that one of these "smart links" links to.

So, Joe User is sitting in his trailer park home in Indiana (convenient example, it could just as well be a $50 a day apartment in the Bronx, or a fine $400,000 home in the suburbs of Chicago for all I care), browsing on his MSN dial-up connection. He comes across your website (by some strange sequence of events), which is all text, with no links whatsoever.

Joe User, however, sees a plethora of links -- "smart links" -- which he proceeds to click on. He gets errors. Joe User isn't happy. Joe User sees an email link on the main page of your site - and (in an astonishing show of insight for a non-clued user) emails you:

"I was on your page, and you have broken links. It makes me angry. Fix them!"

You look at his email and go "what?" - and after checking the validity of all the links in your code, are still perplexed - you email him back:

"Could you be a bit more specific about the links you say are broken? I've verified all the links on my pages as being valid - so I'm not sure what specific problems you've run into."

He doesn't understand - the links are right there in front of him, plain as day.

...You get the point. People are accustomed to the web working in a certain way. Webpages have links in them that go to other webnpages. If a ink is broken, email the site operator. They're not going to understand this new "smart link" thing. They're going to use it, but they're going to believe it comes from the page itself, not from their browser.

Remember that it is the lesser knowledgeable (in terms of internet) who use most of the web.

Actually, they use the *least* of the web, but produce the most *traffic* =) Check out the story /. had here a couple days ago about a handful of sites getting 80+ percent of hits =)

Legal? Sure -- it's a fair use by the end-user

[dschuetz]

And if i write a nice disclaimer somewhere on my site which explicitly disallows this, are they still allowed to "change my site"?

Okay, from the article, it seems this is pretty much just another "See a word, click it, get information" thing (like that NBCi plugin). They're not actually changing your site. And the tags appear differently from normal links, with "squiggly purple lines" that indicate a rollover target, then creates (on rollover) a button that will, if then clicked, take you somewhere else.

It sounds to me like it would be pretty easy for the end user to distinguish between links that I've put there, and links that the browser generated to sites that MS thinks I might be interested in.

Could you write a disclaimer that says "don't do this?" You could try. But would that block the end-user's fair-use rights to the page? How would that be different from someone saying that you couldn't feed their page through a translator? Both systems would be an end-user activity that adds value, in the user's mind, to the information already present in the website. If they want to be able to click on every occurrence of the word "grits," then, well, that's up to them.

My big beef with this would be if the links looked like my own, or if they replaced my own links with links that the system thought were "better." It doesn't sound like this does that. The only other thing that I'd be annoyed with, from a user level, would be if I couldn't turn the damned feature off. Sounds like you can do that, too. Which, naturally, I'd do right off the bat, if it was shipped in default "on" state.

Re:Legal? Sure -- it's a fair use by the end-user

[Jerf]

It sounds to me like it would be pretty easy for the end user to distinguish between links that I've put there, and links that the browser generated to sites that MS thinks I might be interested in.

Frankly, who cares that they can be "distinguished"? This is my site... I don't want them there at all!

But would that block the end-user's fair-use rights to the page?

Gotta watch that "fair-use" stuff... it's extremely limited and does not refer to modification at all. You have the right to quote small snippets in a academic context, parody, and a couple of other small things, but it does not extend to arbitrary modification.

Both systems would be an end-user activity that adds value, in the user's mind, to the information already present in the website.

First, there is no "right" to add value to somebody else's copyrighted work. If your use isn't covered under the extremely limited fair-use clauses and you don't have permission, you are legally out of luck.

Second... a subtle but crucial point, there is a major difference between a "translator" and the described service. In theory, a translator does not in fact add value. In theory, the translated page is identical to the original page: Same links, same expression, same content. In reality it doesn't quite work that way, but there's no real benefit in whaling on the translation services because of that (and copyright law is all about issues of "benefit").

On the other hand, a page that is processed against the copyright-owner's will with these "smart tags" does have real content change. Links are suddenly present that previously did not exist and were in no way created or approved by the page copyright owner.

Even this simple change can have very real consequences to a site's message. Consider how the NoAmazon.com site might look through this feature... it's a good guess Amazon will be one of the featured services (they need the help), so now NoAmazon.com is plastered with links to Amazon whereever they mention Amazon (frequently), or products Amazon sells (look in the sidebar). Joy! Yes, that's maintaining the integrity of the site.

And commercially, of course, Microsoft-approved sites will do more business then the non-Microsoft approved sites that have the links automatically added to the MS-approved sites, who don't suffer from that disadvantage.

My big beef with this would be if the links looked like my own, or if they replaced my own links with links that the system thought were "better."

Get beefing, because they are. They are replacing your lack of links with links of their own. Lack of linkage can carry messages to, like the way NoAmazon.com doesn't link to Amazon (or at least not much; I'm not combing their site for counter-examples), or the perceived initial slighting of the web by Old Media when their articles never included links, even when writing about the Web.

Furthermore, bear in mind that if it's OK for Microsoft to do this, then it's OK for Microsoft to do other things, too. Not all of those other things may be so harmless. Expand your thinking a bit. Esp. from the point of view of copyright violation, if Microsoft is allowed to modify the intended output of the webpage in this fashion, there is no reason to believe that they won't be able to do anything else they wanted. And if Microsoft can do it, so can anyone else.

In fact, there's no practical difference between this and censorware, either; with the power of page modification in the hands of anyone who has the technical ability, and by saying that it's legal to do this, you are granting anybody with the power to modify pages the power to censor as they see fit. There's just no difference between that and what Microsoft's doing, it's just that Microsoft is proposing a weak use of that power.

Consider the consequences!

Re:Legal? Sure -- it's a fair use by the end-user

[Sigmon]

SURE! This is a great idea - not! Let's say I have a business with a website. I sell some sort of synthetic-fiber housing insulation. Fiberglass is my competitor. Somewhere in my website I have a paragraph that speaks of the DISadvantages of fiberglass. Microsoft's new browser links the word Fiberglass to another website that trumpets it's value above other alternatives... That's bad for my business. That torks me off! This is a bad idea. -Sigmon

Re:Meta Hyperlinks.

[Delphis]

what you want a link to every fucking word ? !

--
Delphis

Derivative Work

[Dredd13]

If you don't include anything like a link to "some other site", and when MS displays it, they alter the page to include links to "those other sites", haven't they - by definition - created a derivative work of your copyrighted web page? Couldn't you (as the copyright holder for said page) give them the cluestick application they so desperately need at that point?

That doesn't solve the problem...

[sterno]

While I agree that as a user I can choose to turn off these features or use a product that doesn't do this, there is a serious problem with this smart tags concept that "tuning out" doesn't solve.

If Microsoft controls the operating system market and the browser market then they ultimately control how people look at information. By controlling how people look at information they can influence the message that an individual receives. For example, they could put in lots of links to good press about Microsoft anytime I browse an anti-microsoft article. Anytime I bring up slashdot, the word Linux might end up pointing to Microsoft's shared source philosophy page. They can, to some extent, control information and can therfor control thought.

You as an individual make a choice to not use these technologies, but if large portions of the general population are using them, then that means Microsoft has an increased degree of influence over their thinking. You are not an island and you'll have to deal with the influence of this technology when you meet these people on the street and when they cast their votes. Just think of the potential for smart tags on:

-Political campaign sites - Visit the gore site and see links to pages that are against gore's positions
-Corporate homepages - wonder what sorts of tags might show up on sun's page through a microsoft browser
-Anti-Microsoft sites

Be afraid... Be very afraid...

---

It is a useful feature... too bad they limit it...

[verbatim]

> If you place your cursor on the underlined
> word, an icon appears, and if you click on the
> icon, a small window opens to display links to
> sites offering more information. For instance,
> in the new browser, a Washington Post Web
> article on Japanese baseball players was
> littered with eight Microsoft-generated links
> that the Post editors never placed on their
> site.

I'd like something like this. I think it actually gets the web closer to what it was originally envisioned as - a way of linking information together. This feature would allow you to get related information that is (1) current, (2) relevent, and (3) not necessarily a reflection of the author's opinions. It sounds great... until...

> In the beta version I tested, most of these
> links weren't functional yet, but Microsoft
> officials confirm that they will send users to
> Microsoft Web properties or to other properties
> blessed by Microsoft. One of the links did
> work: It launched Microsoft's mediocre search
> engine, which is packed with plugs for other
> Microsoft services.

This leaves the taste of sour berries in my mouth. A useful feature that will be used to promote one company. I think it would be awesome if the browser cross-referenced the words with a directory project like dmoz. However, Microsoft is obviously trying their darndest to monopolize and control all sources of information on the Internet.

Maybe the mozilla developers can implement something like this into their project. I think it is a really neat idea and it would be a shame to see a good idea closed up, patented, and restricted from fair and public use.

But hey... that's the world we live in. right?
---
Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.

Now where have we seen this before . . .

[Badgerman]

As I recall, didn't someone who created a site-modifier (to change the language of a site) face a lawsuit under DMCA? I could be wrong, but I seem to recall a time site modification sites were getting in trouble.

This is possibly one of the most amazingly blatant examples of Microsoft misusing its technology I have seen - and that is saying a great deal. If this doesn't affect the monopoly case it bloody well should - though under the Shrub administration I have my doubts.

As for this helping Microsoft, this is one Microsoft user (albeit rather involuntary) who won't touch XP with a ten foot pole. Now if I can only talk my wife into using Linux at home . . .

Re:It is a useful feature... too bad they limit it

[Sir Banana]

Having looked at the Smart Tag SDK I can say that since content providers (either the specific site you are viewing or a dictionary or something) can write thier own tags to do just about anything they want, there is no need to write this technology off as flawed.

OK, so the sample tags arn't massivly good and have a microsoft bent to them, but they are only samples.

On a more technical note, you can write these tags either as COM objects, allowing complex database lookups for example, or using a simple XML schema to create website links, which is the part that people seem to be getting worked up about.
The microsoft stock price example is written as XML and works very well. There is no reason why the mozilla developers can't support that schema themselves.

I have been very impressed by MS's smart tags through out office and i think they could be very exciting and powerful both in an internet setting and in an internal setting. I'm sure that anyone can could think of a 100 good uses for these, especially since they can be used in word etc as well:

match filmstars names and link to biographies

match company names/product names and link to the correct site

match rare words and link to a dictionary

match customer names and allow the user to access thier account info

match currency values and provide exchange info
etc. etc.

Opt-in vs. opt-out

[hey!]

I agree that this kind of technology has its legitimate uses.

However, I disagree with your assertion that this will not give Microsoft editorial control over other people's pages. Navigation is a critical part of web content. A browser company adding its own links to a web page is like a printer adding his own footnotes to a book.

The critical issue is who does this -- the reader or the browser producer. If a user opts-in to have Microsoft's (or perhaps some other third party) links added, then it's a fair use by the user.

If the user has to opt out, then Microsoft is insinuating itself into the content of other people's web pages.

Finally, on an offtopic note -- if this "feature" makes it into the mainstream IE, anybody interested in starting a pool as to how long before it gets cracked and we start seeing goatsex smarttags inserted into Slashdot?

RTFA, troll!

[anticypher]

Do you work for M$?

You need to read the article.

These tags don't modify the web page, they are additions to what the browser presents to the user. What the columnist was pointing out was how micr~1.oft added links throughout every article he viewed on his paper's website, that weren't orignally placed there by the site editors. Most of the links were non-functional, but one took him to a lame micr~.oft site. Only M$ will have control over where these links lead, and will sell that link-space to others.

My favorite line in the article
ONE MICROSOFT OFFICIAL says the feature will spare users from "under-linked" sites.

And as Walter Mossberg points out, that changes the editorial content so carefully designed by the website's owners. It gives M$ the power to add or alter any link it feels like, and the end users may never know they are being re-directed to M$ approved content.

the AC

Re:Reality Check Please!!

[Phrogman]

The problem here is that you are making the assumption that the average user *can* distinguish between a regular hyperlink and a smart tag. I think you are being overly optimistic about the savvy of the average user - I am certain I will receive countless emails from users who clicked on a smart tag on my website and when it was broken, contacted me not microsoft.

The majority of users cannot tell you what browser they are using, don't know what an OS is, or what one they are using - and if asked probably get the two confused. They sure as hell won't recognize that there are more than one type of hyperlink on a document.

I will also assume that smart tags are turned on by default - the average user will not know how to turn them off, why they should, or what the "smart tags" button refers to. The fact that I can turn them off via a META tag is almost acceptable - I will be including this in *all* webpages I design for myself, and recommending it as mandatory to all my clients as well. However, I should not have to include a tag to turn them *off*, I should have to include a tag to turn them *on*.

The mere fact that Microsoft can, by virtue of their dictatorshi^H^H^H, er Monopol^H^H^H, I mean innovation foist this *feature* on the majority of web users regardless of what the content generators on a website want is or should be completely illegal. I look forward to the lawsuits I hope will arise - although since the US has such a pathetic Justice system at the moment ("The best judges money can buy") I don't expect anything will come from it. Microsoft has the money and they will no doubt win any court case they get involved in.

Sadly, since MS dominates the browser market, I cannot consider including code to ban IE from my website without eliminating 98% of my traffic.

What Do You Want to Know About Smart Tags?

[webword]

Office XP Developer Center -- Smart Tags

Office XP Developer Center -- Smart Tags (Russian)

'Smart Tags uitdaging voor ontwikkelaars'

All About Smart Tags

XML Cover Pages -- Microsoft Announces Smart Tag Software Development Kit with XML Support

CNET -- Smart Tags and Clever Features

CNET -- Smart Tag SDK (for Office XP)

Read the Article

[petard]

From the WSJ Article:

In addition, Microsoft says, it will provide a free bit of programming code, called a "meta tag," that site owners could use to bar any Smart Tags from appearing on their sites.

In other words, if the "nice disclaimer" is in the form of a properly formed meta tag instructing Internet Exploder not to provide these "smart links", it will be disabled. Still, it sounds like a bad feature to me. Also, who would be surprised if there were a "bug" that prevented the meta tag from being read and conveniently went unfixed? I don't think I'll be using this new OS anyway, between this kind of garbage and the over the top, intrusive license controls. I also don't think I will derive enough value from their other software to justify the costs associated with the subscription model they will surely be moving to. If I can't use their application software, Windows will certainly have no place on my drive.

A thought.

[fluxrad]

Let's kick this story back 5 years ago and i'll give you a little something to mull over in that gray matter of yours. This whole thing reminds me of why i stopped using winders in the first place (as i type this from W2k :(

Microsoft is selling a product. That product is called WindowsXX and you have to live with the fact that if you buy said product, then there may be facets of it that you don't like (i.e. "smart tags" and all the other crap that's become bundled in with it). So here's an alternative...

USE A DIFFERENT OS! I stopped using windows because i couldn't put up with a crappy OS and bundled software that i couldn't get rid of any longer. I advise people, in this situation, to either put up or shut up....USE A DIFFERENT OS! USE A DIFFERENT BROWSER! DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN BITCH!

Let's put it this way. If 99% of the world bought Ford products, and Ford made changes to the product that no one liked, and yet, people went on buying Fords do you think Ford would give a flying fuck what people said and (gasp) change their cars.

Nope. and MS doesn't give a flying fuck either because "smart tags" or no, people are going to go on buying Winders like the lemmings they are.


FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

Control...

[tcc]

Control the Desktop OS - check
Control the browsing platform - cHeck
Control lobyists and juges - check
Control databases and information - check
Control what people WANT - In progress...

ok they can continue on with their world domination strategy, fine with me, as long as it means one day they will control my mother in law, if that's not in the plan... I have the feeling I am being screwed somewhere....I just can't point it...

Re:That puts a bit of a nasty spin on it!

[tclark]

The SmartTags feature just makes it easy for Web Site Operator B, if he's running IIS/ASP or whatever, to easily insert a stock quote from A's site. That's all.

Which is a blessing, since before this we had to resort to such klugery as hyperlinking. It's a wonder the web is even usable at all.

Microsoft is not evil

[Aceticon]

I'm here to defend Microsoft against all the traditional bashing and slashing against Microsoft that happens here on Slashdot.

People don't realise this, but Microsoft is a wonderfull company. For example:

• Their products are designed to give the consumer the freedom to work in a wide range of enviroments - Windows95, Windows98, WindowsME, WindowsNT, Windows2000, WindowsXP
• The quality of their software is excelent - DOS is very stable
• Their prices are highly afordable - Windows 3.1 prices are at an all time low

In this specific case, i think putting in IE the ability to transform any work in an HTML page into a link to a Microsoft site is a way of empowering the User by allowing him/her to for example click in the name of a brand and be sent to a Microsoft endorsed site full with articles to buy and "super special promotions" and "unbiased consumer information".

To everybody out there i say:
Please think twice before bashing Microsoft again!!!

Woo hoo!

[gowen]

I'm looking forward to all the fervent censorship sites having all the words they disapprove of instantly converted into working pr0n links...

Kewl

Reality Check Please!!

[purplemonkeydan]

Note: I'm an IE6 tester, so I believe I'm reasonably qualified to comment without fear of spreading FUD.

1. Smart tags can be easily turned off by the end user. There is a BUTTON ON THE TOOLBAR to do this.
2. Smart tags can be easily turned off by a page author. There is a META tag that does this.
3. The default smart tags look for any reference to any company in MoneyCentral, and a few US universities. You click on them, and you get info.
4. Smart tags look nothing like ordinary links. They are purple dotted lines uder the word. When you mouse-over them, an (i) info symbol appears. You CANNOT mistake smart tags for ordinary links.
5. IMO, they are a pain, but easily disabled.

Nothing to see here. Move along.