Size Matters + Slippery Slope = Trouble Ahead

This morning I listened to a raging debate between Robert Scoble and Cory Doctorow that you can find here on IT Conversations. During the 46-minute program Doctorow, Scoble, trademark lawyer/blawger Marty Schwimmer debate the ethics and legality of Google's new Toolbar Autolink feature. Regular readers know I feel that Autolink violates the rights of content providers by inserting links they never intended to create.

As I listened to the podcast, two phrases kept repeating in my head: 1) "size matters" and 2) "slippery slope." These two issues underscore why Autolink is such a critical issue that could determine the future direction of online content. Let's take a closer look at each of these.

First, the reason that Google Autolink is important is because "size matters." This isn't just any company changing content. It's a Microsoftesque company with incredible reach and influence, not only on the Web, but increasingly on the desktop too. Just take a gander at the company's recent acquisitions - Keyhole and Picasa. Both are desktop apps. What's more, take a look at the array of free downloadable software applications they are launching. To me this means that Google has Microsoft in its sights. Google's influence in our daily lives will become even bigger when they launch their rumored browser and perhaps build an operating system as well. A Google calendar is already reportedly in the works.

So if you buy into the fact that Google's size gives it influence, then the next step is to consider what might happen if they get away with leaving Autolink as is. That's like letting your kid steal candy. Once they see it's kosher, they will do it again and again until one day they're stealing Chevy's, not Charleston Chews. This is the "slippery slope" that Robert and others have so eloquently written about. Allowing Google to insert links on ISBN numbers might seem innocent - for now. But what if one day they use a Gbrowser to say to users "Hey, we'll change all your links back to us since you clearly love us so much." On a mass level, this would change the Web forever.

Google needs to show they care about the content producers they depend upon as much as the users by giving us opt outs. If they don't, when you couple their size and the slippery slope, there's no telling what might come next.

Comments

[phoetica]

Yes,
It's trouble ahead, especially for some webmasters... But I don't think it violates some "rights" of the publishers. You as a publisher put some article online and this is your right - to publish or not to publish. But if I, as a surfer, visit your article, I download a COPY of it to my local machine, and then it is my right to do anything I want with it, and to view it with whatever software and with whatever plugins activated. I can strip off css, images, ads, links, whatever. I can also use software, which will add custom css to the COPY I am viewing, or add links, translation, whatever.

I think the tools like Autolink or Butler will prevail in the (near) future, just because of the single fact that they are useful... I understand the fear of some webmasters, since it is very possible they may lose some $$ in this. That's the real reason of such concern, I think.

Anyway, WWW was created as a platform for free exchange of information, not for earching money. Later, some people took advantage of the web's popularity and are making money out of it. That's perfectly ok with me, it's their right. But it's not their right to tell me how I can surf the web.

[Deborah Branscum]

Phoetica, I make zero bucks off of my blog. It's a new blog but I used to write a blog about media, PR and marketing between the beginning of 2001 and the end of 2003. Autolinks both scare, anger and sadden me, not because I am worried about losing money but because I want the blog entries I write to include the links, words and images that I put there: no more and no fewer.

You say you can download a copy of my site onto your local machine and do whatever you want to. Be my guest. But the Autolinks feature is not about letting individual users annotate web sites for their own amusement on their own machines. Someone else compared Autolinks to writing notes in the margins of a book. But that's a bad analogy because only you write notes in the margins of your book. Your mom doesn't do that to your books, aneighbor doesn't it, and Barnes & Noble doesn't do it. That's something you, personally, choose to do or not do.

So the "user rights" and "ease of use" issues are bogus, in my opinion. My blog is not difficult to navigate. Google Autolinks won't make it easier to read my blog, just easier to navigate to links chosen by Google to further develop its advertising capabilities and build bigger revenue streams. But Google doesn't own my web site not the web itself for that matter so I don't understand why we're all supposed to go along with the idea.

[phoetica]

Hi Deborah,
Sorry for the oversimplification, I didn't want to say that the fear of losing money is the only reason publishers are against Autolink. What I wanted to point out is, that the fight against Autolink, as presented here and almost everywhere else, is based on flawed understanding of the WWW platform itself.

For example, when you say: "Google Autolinks won't make it easier to read my blog, ..." all I can say is this: Maybe it won't, maybe it will, but that's just not your business. That's my concern as a surfer to determine which software and which plugins will allow me to better read your or other website. It's really up to me.

The analogy mentioned in your post should be corrected to this: "I am deliberately allowing my neiGhbour to write notes to the margins of my books, since I find those notes useful to me." It is very possible that my neiGhbour is not doing it out of pure altruism, but he's not forcing me, just offers the possibility. Moreover, if you'll look at the firefox extensions repository, for example, there are much more sassy neighbours!

[Roger Benningfield]

Steve: Google is neither a government nor a monopoly. Until it becomes one or the other, slippery slope arguments are meaningless.

[Royal]

Wonder at what point do actual *words* and *meaning* on a page get changed? Hey, wait a minute, Google already does that with its language translation services.

[Robert Scoble]

Phoetica: well, if you take that stance you must admit that Google's Autolink isn't nearly user centric enough. At least Microsoft's SmartTags would let you program your own tags in to take you where you wanted to be taken.

[Will Pate]

Slippery slope is a logical fallacy and a poor basis for an argument, which is the main reason Cory Doctorow walked all over Scoble in the debate.

Come on, you guys aren't even arguing against AutoLink anymore - you're arguing against what it could be. It's boogeymanism at best. The only way we can follow your argument is to assume that Google has suddenly become an evil company, so where's the evidence that outweighs their generally accepted position as a good company?

Your simile of a kid stealing candy doesn't fit either. Google isn't stealing anything, by any stretch of the imagination.

[Mike]

If there's any slippery slope, it seems like it goes the other way. Telling people they can't do what they want with content once it's on their own hard drive under their own free will with applications they specifically chose to use is a slippery slope towards denying the user the ability to do what he or she wants... That's the slippery slope to be worried about. It certainly looks like it's pointed in the other direction. If we've learned anything from blogging it should be that anyone is empowered. Here you are trying to say that users shouldn't be empowered to make use of the tools that are offered to them.

Google isn't forcing this on anyone. It's user choice. The only slippery slope is from people saying that we shouldn't be allowed to use the tools that are offered to us to make content more useful.

[David Sims]

As I stated in point #4 of my earlier comments in (Google May Launch UPC Code Autolinks) on the subject:

"One last argument I’ve seen wielded in favor of Autolink-type technologies is the notion that if someone builds a site but doesn’t give you good links, then "we’re here to ‘save the day’ and provide a way out of this (lousy) site"...That argument seems to me to...[be] the polar opposite of the service upon which the good Google name and reputation have been built...it seems...to undermine the validity of the core service for which the whole world admires Google..."

This is echoed in the excellent analysis today by Joshua Porter at his Bokardo site(Bottoms-Up! (Notes)) in which he summarizes:

"But what about Google, you ask? Isn’t that automated? Surely, people aren’t sitting there deciding which links to give a higher pagerank to, right?...Actually, that’s exactly what’s going on here, but the people in question don’t work for Google. The people in question are the ones making the decisions about what is valuable to them by publicly linking to another URI. (In other words, the people actually making the web sites.) This is the important part of Google, and it is NOT automated. What is automated is the aggregation and display of this behavior. It’s a subtle, but vital, difference."

Although he is not discussing Autolink in his article, Mr. Porter concisely captures exactly *why* I'm so virulently against Autolink and its ilk of linking technologies: it is the SITE BUILDERS who manually determine pagerank by creating (or not creating) links...I'll be the first to agree that Google does a bang-up job of aggregating; however, that 'subtle, but vital, difference' that Porter describes IS A DIFFERENCE that should be respected.

No one who determines pagerank by building links into sites should be "forced" into helping Amazon's, Google's, or anyone else's bottom line, just because a "Google" wants to make it "user-centric"--that's toying with the very strength of its own search service--is that smart? (at least beyond the period of initial monetary profit?)--if I want to help another site's bottom line, *I* can build a link to it.

[Henri]

In skimming the above, I'd like to add two points not fully covered.

1: What if Google gets the meaning wrong in generating the autolink? A web page: mentions the movie XXX and links to porn sites are generated, a number which happens to look like an ISBN exists and a link to Amazon appears, a company's website discusses its product and a link to a competitor's site is added within its own page!

And no, webmasters should not have to add code to disable AutoLinks to its pages. The 'exception' list may end up bigger than the web page! (yes, I am exaggerating)

2: "Know they users FOR THEY ARE NOT YOU!"
In general we are cognoscenti. We understand the effects and we know how to turn on and off features. I hate to say it but many users do not. I'm sure you've re-installed the OS, cleaned up systems, etc. for your friends and loved ones who just don't know what they've done to their system (and I don't mean viruses).

Saying it's OK to allow AutoLink is exactly like saying that violence or sex on TV is OK because parents can just use the V-Chip. Well, yes, but I bet too often they don't and sadly its in the homes where they should the most.

How many users will unknowingly install the toolbar and enable AutoLink and not know it is on? This is irrespective of all efforts by Google (or whomever) to make users aware of the changes that will occur. Do you read all those terms and conditions (and warnings) when you OK the installation of software?

I've said many times: "One of the hardest things in design is making software simple and easy to use for the neophyte while at the same time allowing the power-user unhindered enhanced functionality." To this I guess should be added: "while maintaining an ethical (more than simply legal) understanding of the limits that should be maintained for all users".