How much Search is too much Search?

Google has raised a few eyebrows (to put it mildly) with its proposed AutoLink feature.

If you have the Google toolbar installed (the beta version that supports this feature), then the toolbar will modify how web pages display. If there’s a street address on the page, the Google toolbar will turn it to a link to Google Maps (click on the address, see the map). If there’s an ISBN, Google toolbar will turn it into a link to the appropriate Amazon page (Barnes & Noble is not amused). If there’s a package tracking number, Google toolbar will change it to a link to the appropriate shipper.

Is this “evil”? It depends on your perspective. Criticisms come from two angles:

1. It’s changing the underlying web page (by inserting a link that the page designer didn’t intend). This is wrong (and possibly, in a more far-fetched way, a violation of copyright).

   Of course, browsers do this all the time — accessibility features, for example, may override a page’s style sheet, and other presentation items, while security features may block certain web page content (e.g., ad blockers). And I know of at least one Firefox extension that will turn a web address listed on a web page that isn’t actually a link into a link.

   This takes things a step further, creating a link to someone not intended by the web page owner — who may, in fact, have intentionally chosen not to make it a link (some folks, for example, dislike Amazon). That leads to the next criticism …

2. Money! Money is evil! Google is out to make money! RAWK! Though Google is not gaining any revenue from this yet (the Amazon choice was because, well, damn, that’s the natural place to look for things with ISBNs), it could do so. What if, for example, Google tied certain text to AdSense style ads, so that mentioning a “Dell” computer would generate a link to Dell, or to a Dell repair shop, or whomever paid the most money?

   Of course, Google isn’t doing that … yet … but they could … and therefore it’s evil.

I’m mixed on the subject (and I don’t use the Google toolbar, so I don’t have a vested interest one way or another). I can understand the concern, but (a) the Google toolbar is, of course, optional (which makes this significantly different from Micro$oft’s attempt to do something similar with Smart Tags in IE a while back), and (b) if done well, it does in fact add to the “webbiness” of the web and does in fact provide a valuable service.

If Google actually were to take such a tool even further — going into non-factual info (e.g., any reference to George W. Bush AutoLinking to www.gop-is-swell.org), I might have stronger objections. And if Google makes it configurable (to not do it, or to decide who should be the “ISBN look-up of choice”), that might alleviate some concern as well.

But, as it stands now, I don’t have a lot of heartburn with Google’s effort here. Especially since there’s a pretty easy way to defeat it (by making anything you don’t want AutoLinked into an anchor, putting “<a>” and “</a>” around it).