posted on February 20, 2005 02:26:12 PM new
From Google’s description of the Auto-Link enhancement for their ToolBar:
The online review of a great new restaurant has the place's address but no map. You could type the restaurant's street, city, and ZIP code into the search box, but why bother, when clicking the Toolbar's AutoLink button will automatically create a link to an online map (US addresses only)? AutoLink can also link package tracking numbers to delivery status, VIN numbers (US) to vehicle history, and publication ISBN numbers to Amazon.com listings.
With "AutoLink" enabled, web pages will be "enhanced" with additional links if Google thinks additional information might be helpful. For example, say your browsing a web page with numerous addresses on it. AutoLink will turn each of those addresses into direct links to the Google Maps database.
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Sounds innocent enough, doesn’t it?
However, imagine that instead a potential buyer was on an item page in your on-line store and the widgets name was hyperlinked to the identical item by name or product # on say, Amazon or another competitor’s site. Maybe not even the identical item, just “diamond ring” for instance. Not only would they be diverting traffic ( and potential sales) from your site, they would also be altering your web page without your permission .
Meanwhile, Google could be collecting a fee for either the traffic and/or the potential sales resulting from traffic that was originally yours.
As was pointed out on a web master board, this is already the case on say B&N.com. With Autolink enabled, buyers now on B&N have the title’s ISBN linked to Amazon. Package tracking numbers, and vehicle identification numbers are also now currently enabled.
While it is still an option, you can either enable or disable the ToolBar or AutoLink itself, Google is still preemptively altering your web site’s content. A matter of serious concern in itself apart from what they may or may not do with those links.
All of this is a way of cautioning those eBayer’s who think that by having their own web site they will recapture profits and increase sales apart from the little e-ville empire. What is more likely the case is that you will jump from the ebay frying pan into the much larger fires of the entire Google-ized web.
The irony is that eBay’s “walled garden” may offer, in the long run, some of the only protection from the ubiquitous features of Google’s ToolBar and what it may / will eventually become.
Best,
Michael
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