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Google Gets Away With What Microsoft Couldn't
FreshlyShornBalls writes "WebProNews is reporting that
Google's new beta toolbar apparently sports an "AutoLink" feature which appends hyperlinks to existing content. These hyperlinks, of course, point to their services, such as maps for addresses, isdn numbers for books, etc. Sounds an awful lot like Microsoft's "Smart Tags"." Update by J : ... except that Microsoft's proposal was in the monopoly browser while Google's software is a third-party add-on, and Microsoft's was (originally) on by default while Google's is a button to click.
Easy tiger - for this to work, you have to click a button on each and every page you want to temporarily create these links on. It took 3 minutes to confirm that. Is the art of journalism dead?
/. reader won't touch that with a bargepole.
This is an opt-in feature designed to help people who want it. Google aren't ramming this down people's throats.
There is also the option to change the default mapping app - you can switch between Mapquest and Yahoo maps in addition to Google's offering. A nice touch - google didn't have to do that. It's just a shame this only works for US addresses right now.
Of course, this is all academic. It runs on IE, and the average
I of course detonated the PC I used to test the toolbar in a controlled explosion a few minutes ago.
Microsoft has an almost total monolopy on PCs. If Microsoft does this, it's anti-competitive. They have been convicted as monolopists.
If Googles optional toolbar points at their services, that is hardly an abuse of a monolopy. Heck, I don't even have a google tool bar, I don't want one.
But at work, I'm forced to have a windows machine.
Until or unless Google becomes a big monolopy who can force everyone to use their crap, the fact that Google does something that would be illegal for Microsoft to do is irrelevant.
Why is this so tough?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I think we need to stop thinking of Google and MS as good vs. evil. They are both companies out to make a profit. Google chooses to make a profit by showing us advertisements, while Microsoft chooses to make a profit by getting us to buy their software. Neither is less or more evil than the other - they both answer to consumers when the screw up something, and since consumers control the almighty dollar, they are answerable to us. The problem is that most consumers can't agree on what color blue is, much less whether a company is doing something that is too invasive or not.
I did wonder how long the "Microsoft Inc Bad, Google Inc Good" pastiche could last.
...
Just because its founders are young and "wacky" doesn't mean they can't make very corporate decisions in polo shirts instead of pinstripe shirts. The platitude about "thinking outside the box" already sounds trite coming from Google. The decision to fire a blogger for speaking up is proof that Google has a PR department just like any other corporate minded drone army.
Bill Gates was once young and just as idealistic as Sergey and Brin. Bill Gates once said that he was planning to give away most if not all of his fortune to charity - I bet he wasn't labelled "evil" back then
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
I find it surprising that most /.ers, while criticizing the MPAA and the RIAA for placing restrictions on the way their content is used, balk when website content is manipulated on the browser end.
Microsoft's Smarttags could have had great benefits and brought about semantic-web like features if only people weren't paranoid. After all, the website owner had full control over how and where smart tags were displayed on his page.
Now, 3 years later, Google does a stripped down version of the same to make themselves more money (MS' smart tag gave the website owner options - Google does not), and we all scream asking for the equivalent of DRM on web pages.
We who don't want to pay for the music and movies, who don't want to pay for software, who believe in the 'creative commons', throw a collective fit when a user agent wants to do something cool with the HTML already downloaded to the computer already.
It's been over a decade since the first browser - and all we have to show for it from Microsoft, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla put together is what? A new way of doing tables and tabs!
Stop cribbing and let someone innovate.
Throughout humanity, there is a basic standard of right and wrong. We may disagree on some of the smaller points of it, but the general principles are there. Don't steal, don't murder, don't lie, etc... Evil is something that breaks one of these basic rules. A company out for a profit is not inherently evil, however, when it starts to break these rules, then it partaking in evil actions. In general MS and Google are neither evil because neither of them are breaking these basic laws of humanity. We may not like the way they compete in business, but that doesn't make them evil.
Exactly. You build a relationship with any entity you interact with, and Google has treated me very, very well. I've almost always enjoyed working with Google products, while I've almost always become angry when working with microsoft products.
Google is a good company and I trust them until they break that trust.
ONE too many times? You have to be kidding, unless after that one time you just stopped using MS products forever (which is damn near impossible, even with my magical consumer dollar power. I have to work.)