On 2 March, SecurityFocus published my column Where is Google Headed? (and reprinted at The Register), a look at Google's new AutoLink feature for its Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. I'm critical of the feature, and although I was attacked on other blogs, and even called both greedy and a hypocrite, I still stand by my column. I've done more thinking about the AutoLink issue since my column came out, and I'd like to further my arguments with some clarification. Understand that I'm a fervent supporter of Rip, Mix, Burn culture, and I firmly believe that users have the right to alter web pages once they're in a user's web browser cache … but I think AutoLink - as currently implemented by Google - is a very bad idea.
The key distinction for me is this: I don't like it when large corporations make wide-ranging decisions for users that disadvantage those that the corporations choose not to favor. So, for instance, I like the Firefox Greasemonkey extension, but I don't like AutoLink. Both change the contents of web pages in users' caches, in radical ways (in fact, Greasemonkey is perhaps more radical than AutoLink). However, AutoLink only changes links in ways that Google approves and provides; Google in effect, then, becomes the gatekeeper for e-commerce and communication. For example, AutoLink automatically changes all ISBNs to point to Amazon.com, which sounds great, but what if you don't use Amazon? What if you like Barnes & Noble? Or BookPool? Or even better, you wish to support your local independent bookstore's web site? AutoLink provides no way to change this, which means that Google's decisions about links are immutable, and the company now has strong influence over the purchasing decisions of millions of its users.
Greasemonkey, on the other hand, is a framework that allows users to build upon that framework and change web pages in ways that suit them. I can download scripts that others have prepared, but you will never find millions of people using the same scripts, and there is complete freedom for anyone else to create (or modify) new scripts. Greasemonkey is an open architecture (it's just XUL and JavaScript, essentially), so it doesn't lock anyone in.
The same thing holds true for Adblock, another super-powerful Firefox extension that can be used to radically change the way web pages look and function by blocking annoying ads. Adblock installs as a blank slate, with no ads blocked by default. It is up to the user to select the ads he wishes to block. It is possible to import a list of ads to block from others, but this is completely up to the user's discretion, and it is possible to modify that list at any time. Similar Firefox extensions, which also empower users by giving them access to choice, include Autofill, BetterSearch, Flashblock, Nuke Anything, Resizeable Textarea, and WebmailCompose.
That to me, ultimately, is the difference: user control, rather than corporate-mandated impositions on my abiltiy to make a decision for myself. If Google changed AutoLink to allow users to input their own choices for books, addresses, and license plates, I'd be all for it. If AutoLink installed without any pre-made choices at all, and instead required the user to enter in her own URLs for searches, I'd praise it as another tool giving control back to users. But as it stands today, AutoLink is a case of Google leveraging its brand as a trusted source of information to exert too much power over the linking - and e-commerce - decisions of Google Toolbar users. I can't support it.
1. Another example that I hate like this -- antivirus software. They all tend to ship with a pre-loaded virus definition package. That's totally taking control out of the users' hands. Instead, they should ship by default with no virus definitions enabled. Users could easily add which viruses they'd like to filter for.
After all, most users really want to spend their days configuring add-ons/programs like this.
Posted at 6:34AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Brian Carnell