DougalGuy created this section after seeing the outcry over the Google toolbar on ThreadWatch and Search Guild
Hopefully dougaltoolbar.com has made a few people smile, but more importantly, helped people understand where AutoLink is heading, and why it's bad news for so many web publishers. Maybe it doesnt effect you today but who knows what words AutoLink will target tomorrow.
Remarkably, some think the Dougal toolbar is for real. Few comments from various forums:
"I won't use it , just look at their privacy statement"
"How on earth are they going to compete with the other toolbars"
"It doesnt even work in firefox"
One word for these people Satire
AutoLink is a feature on the new Google Toolbar version 3 beta.
When the user views a website containing an address or ISBN the AutoLink button offers to show more information. The user decides whether to click the button or not. When the user clicks the AutoLink button the web page is changed to link to sites that supposedly contain more or better information. The user then has the choice to click the link or not. Sounds innocent enough? Read on!
Users benefit by giving them more detailed information.
Against:
But do they really benefit?
When an ISBN is found the AutoThink button changes to "Show Book Info".
The ISBN's are simply changed to point to the Amazon page for that book.
At no point does the user know where they will be taken.
Most people know Amazon sell books and can find it for themselves.
The "show book info" implies there is more info to be found than the page you are on,
when you could already be reading a much better review than found on Amazon.
Users would not use AutoLink unless it was useful.
AgainstGive users what they want as long at it does not negatively affect a perfectly good website.
If users wanted a button to turn off AdSense and AdWords would Google give them that?
What if users asked for a button to take them to the top ranking website that matched the publisher's content?
Sound good? Well for search Google is ranked 7th. Still sound good?
Users are not forced to use the toolbar or AutoLink, it's completely optional
AgainstGator and other adware providers use the same argument, they know your average internet user is not web savvy. Users will confuse publisher's content with Google's altered content.
Only greedy web publishers will not want to enhance the user experience.
AgainstFor the same reason Google places ads on its search results, other web site owners publish ads with their content. Anything that encourages users to avoid user friendly ads from the publisher is bad for the web site owner.
The toolbar already changes content. No one complained about the highlight feature.
AgainstThe highlight feature aided usability without harming the web publisher.
AutoLink only changes ISBN's and provides links to maps, what is all the fuss about!
Against:Web publishers unaffected by the current AutoLink feature know when all the fuss has died down it will not be long before other words are targeted and other toolbar providers do the same. Just look at the words Dougal targets for a glimpse of the future.