Still More Advertising Links

An Anonymous Coward writes: "MSNBC.com has the latest on the controversial Smart Tags technology that got punted from Windows XP. This time it's not Microsoft doing the dirty deed, but a couple of 3rd-party companies. And they already have 500,000 users installed. I can see the lawyers salivating already."

Comments

Whoever owns the client...

[jmerelo]

owns the content... it's technically feasible to change the content displayed by the client anyway you want. Maybe that's was really the incentive behind the IE/Netscape war.

Who is in control?

[Hobbex]

I see a concerning tendency in these discussions for people who normally seem to understand that the other people cannot be allowed to dictate how we run our computers, to suddenly label this sort of software as evil.
Just like I will not allow the movie industry to be in control over my computer when I watch a DVD, and the Publishing industry cannot be in control of my computer/palmtop when I read a book, the Internet's website publishers have NO right to demand that I view their sites in any particular manner. Software that replaces adds with others, or software that adds links to websites, has as much a right to exist as any other software. If I choose to run it, then it is my freedom to do so - if you do not like people being able to read your documents while replacing the adds, I would suggest you stop putting your content on the web in the first place - not that you demand that web browsers should suddenly serve you rather than the person browsing.

User agents must serve the user and only the user. Demanding that browsers serve the interests and expectations of website publishers is in no way different from demanding that DVD players serve the interests and expectations of the MPAA, and that MP3 player serve the interests and expectations of the RIAA. The concept that of these "User Hostile" agents is the basis for the future that those who are attacking Freedom on the Internet are planning. If we value freedom and self determination in the information age, we cannot in any case condone and support an attitude that preaches that software is responsible to anybody except the person using it - even when it is the form of sleazy marketing.

That said, there is of course a more sinister angle to what these programs are doing - that is that they sneak their way into peoples computers without people realizing it. That we should not condone - but let us face it, it will be impossible to get away from as long as people are using software written without the intentions of the user in mind. We already have the solution to that problem, it is called Free Software, and there is enough of it to cover every computing need. When was last time you got a piece of spyware off apt-get?

So in closing, do not confuse the issues here:

- Programs installing functionality the user didn't ask for or want = BAD
- Programs doing what they (and presumable the user, given the previous) wants rather than what the website owner/music company/film company/book publisher/etc wants = GOOD

Re:Who is in control?

[cperciva]

If this was indeed an issue of user agents serving users, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, it isn't: I highly doubt that any of the hundreds of thousands of people who installed the software knew that they were agreeing to have advertising thrown at them.

USERS have the right to change how websites are displayed on their computers. Other companies don't.

Re:Who is in control?

[Dolly_Llama]

- Programs doing what they (and presumable the user, given the previous) wants rather than what the website owner/music company/film company/book publisher/etc wants = GOOD

See the problem here is establishing who is the customer of advertising. The premise of these things supposes that the user, staring at the screen is the customer being more well informed because he/she/it can quickly access information simply by clicking the link. This is wrong.

You are the product of advertising. Advertisers use flashy attractive things to lure your little eyeballs, count up all eyeballs lured, and sell this as a service.

Going back to the premise, one is not more well informed by being able to click on a link and be sent to a single controlled page containing PAID-FOR information. This is not information. This is advertising.

Storm in a Teacup

[(void*)]

These people don't seem to get what the web it. The whole point of the web is that the web client gets to control where he wants to go, what resources he chooses to download. If I want to write my own browser that creates a link out of every other word, that should be my perogative. If the resulting website looks slanderous/twisted or whatever, it would only look like that to me, nobody else.

This is not to say that the technology is well thought out. Many of the complaints are valid. It is not a good idea to mark commonly used, generic words to be sent to a specific site. It is not a good idea to spread or propagate those links to people who do not want them, or sell to the highest bidder. IMHO, only end-users (or businesses running a company wide intranet) should be able to control exactly which links where. And this is done because only they know what kind of links satisfy their needs

Face it - the idea behind this is as old as the annotated work. This is just the problem of indexing all over again - which words do you want to put in the index, and which ones not to? The engine that enables one to do this should be lauded, but one should realize that the choice of words to highlight is dependent highly upon one's judgement. Those who think that this judgement can be pushed onto a machine just have not thought hard about what it is that they are automating. Employing such potentially useful functionality for advertising, and the criticism of that as "taking away the hits" seems so banal, so idiotically lacking in perspective.

Slippery slopes ahead

[JanneM]

As always, there is a flip side to this. If this is made unlawful, that would probably apply to filtering/adbusting proxies as well; for the content providers there isn't much of a difference between replacing their ads and removing them. And once you're down that slippery slope, you could see blocking graphics, disallowing popups or animated gifs or even having your own typeface as intruding upon the websites' rights. This could conceivably mean that websites could legally demand that users use only a certain browser in only its standard configuration, whether the site would work with other setups or not.

I think the problem with this software isn't what they do, but the fact that they are being deployed in a dishonest way. Most people getting them installed will have no idea they are doing that, and they don't give paople an easy way of removing them. The dishonesty stems mainly from the fact that the users are installing an application to do one thing, and these change an unrelated application without this fact being advertised as part of the description of the original application.

/Janne

Why should I have sympathy?

[HuskyDog]

Perhaps I am missing something here? If users don't like these extra links then they can remove the software. If they don't know how then they can either ask or go buy a book.

If it comes built into their OS then they can either put up with it or move to a free OS.

In either case, why should I have any sympathy?

Re:Why should I have sympathy?

[mikethegeek]

" Perhaps I am missing something here? If users don't like these extra links then they can remove the software. If they don't know how then they can either ask or go buy a book. "

I don't like that attitude. Like everyone, I was once a novice computer user (true, it was over 15 years ago, but I digress).

I abhor exploiting newbies as a matter of principle. But there is a self-interest angle...

The more newbies get exploited by marketerware, the HARDER it gets for them to experience their PC and the Internet without exploiter programs bothering them, the MORE likely they are to jump from the PC to simple dedicated machines that will lock them into one company's less obscene marketing.

Without newbies coming into the PC market, what happens to those of us who's income depends on it? We can either help the newbies, and try to do something about this abusive exploitation, or else, laugh at them as they are driven OFF the PC, and as we end up haughty ex-IT professionals now working at places where we have to say "you want fries with that".

Because, other than our computer skills, I'm betting the majority of us have no other job qualifications than that.

Re:They've crossed the line long ago

[fleck_99_99]

"The browser has no business modifying webpages."

Erm... My understanding is that HTML is (at root) just a markup language for text. Until CSS and layers and whatnot got totally out of hand, it wasn't even POSSIBLE for the designer to dictate how a webpage would be rendered. I know I always change the default fonts and sizes; maybe the author of the webpage WANTED it displayed in ANNOYING-HUGE or illegibletiny or even *shudder* BLINK!

I think any end-user who wants to modify their browser (by recoding it, by installing a third-party program, or by viewing it through one of those red plastic decoder rings) has every right to do that. So the text on your web page triggered my auto-link-to-search-engine software? How is that a PROBLEM?

Re:What is the Problem?

[fleck_99_99]

"The copyright grants, among other things the exclusive right to create derivative works, except in the case of parody."

So remember, unless specifically stated by the author, you can't:

- Change font sizes
- Change colors
- Resize auto-sizing browser windows
- Display in less or more color depth than intended
- Use screen-reader technology (audio or tactile)
- Allow your browser to add links to the text
- Display page in an unauthorized browser.

Any of these modify the web page significantly, so they could be called derivative works. So now I'm getting confused. Does information want to be freely usable by the end-recipient or not?

An unlikely allie

[marcovje]

I work at a major ISP helpdesk, and all these proxying programs are rapidly becoming the
second major problem most helpdesks are facing.
(First is, and remains firewalls, including
NAV 2001)

The reason is simple. They sometimes go haywire
and block IE traffic. (I can get pinged, even
ICQ etc, except IE goes dead).

Give this half a year to trickly through from
the unwashed massed to ISP-management, and you have yourselves a firm partner against
these programs. (Yes that is slow, I know)