Tim Bray Slams Google over AutoLink

If it keep G in the discussion forums and news headlines over the MSN launch then victory won :)

I wonder if they have Bill Gates blood preasure chart on their wall at Gplex. Everytime they smother or waterdown an MSN achievement in the media they move the blood preasure bar up a notch and everyone cheers :)

Search is a commodity, and one that is easy to switch away from, why use one that is evil?

If people can be educated to switch to firefox then they can certainly switch search engine

> then they can certainly switch search engine

As soon as you can find one as good as Firefox. :)

Hey Nick, I think we've reached the tipping point. From now on, maybe the "news" will be to report whomever comes out in favor of autolinks, hhh!

I've ummmed and ahh'd a bit over seperate threads for all these things - but i get the feeling Google are playing a waiting game - bloggers get bored easily bless 'em heh..

So far i count Doctorow and Gillmor as the only ones that don't get it yet... (apart from a couple of blogging G employees)...

http://www.kottke.org/05/03/google-toolbar-autolink

But not everyone has the luxury of his business model...

It was the same with Gillmor, google know that's a good card and that some idiots wont see through it, or past it.

Really, i read most of the folks that are pro autolink, they're all very much alike, spend most of the day dribbling about some twonk no one's ever heard of who >gasp!< started a blog! and the other half mumbling about "remixing" content - like it was top of my mums priority when she browses the web...

If you met these guys in the street, they'd be the ones wearing beret's and sitting outside pretentious paris cafe's hoping their peers would spot them...

Real people just dont think like them, thank christ.

Steve Rubel is absolutely gutted he picked the side of the publisher hehe..

Thing is though, there is no damn side here! Everyone loses...

Man, im getting too wound up, off to do something else...

The main thing is to keep finding different angles to keep info drip feeding on. Feed the paranoia and get a good end result.

Let’s face it, if this version is not culled. In 1 years time a far more vicious product will decimate the web to the good of no one but Google, its soon to be multi millionaire employees and it partners

Richardb, you are right, everyone who make a living from the web, or has a vested interest in the Internet in any way needs to fight this and be vigilant.
Kottke -- what an absolute jackass.

I've decided that autolink is to Webmasters as the Boston Strangler is to women alone.

- Adam, sitting outside in Silicon Valley, sipping a pretentious latte out of my beret

I don't care about the toolbar or autolink right now, it's what is behind the floodgates that worries me. Give them an inch and they will take ... well, the whole friggin lot :OS

Balanced article from slate
http://slate.msn.com/id/2114308/fr/rss/

From that Slate article:

Google may not be making money, but Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon is a shareholder in Google and was before the IPO. Amazon owned Alexa and A9 search engines also use Google search feeds therefore are Google search service customers. So while there may not be a direct exchange of money I doubt BN.com ever was even considered as the default bookseller for ISBN Autolinks.

Amazon has dropped AdSense???

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/03/03/AutoLinkAgain

What is it with bloggers? It is like they've all been castrated and lobotomised.

If you read it through, he only apologizes for being rude. He doesnt actually back down, just softens the tone a bit...

That's what I am getting at, they are collectively so sheep like. No balls at all, and if they dear to disagree with the mantra they have to piss all over themselves.

I was not castrated, I was born without testicles, thankyewverrmuch.

I believe what you mean to say is something more like, "isn't it a shame that no-html-needed blogging tools have become SO popular that building/running a website has crossed the ease-of-use barrier leading to dilution by the sheeplike masses to the point where they have become the majority of the blogging community, much like they are the majority of society as a whole... much like what the popularity of AOL did for the overall signal to noise ratio of the internet in general," wasn't it?

I thought so. ;-)

So if we disagree vociferously with the cause de jour here, we're still sheep with no testicles?

Ah, I get it: if we don't agree with YOU, then we're sheep who ARE nuts but who HAVE no nuts.

Why do I even bother?

I'm linking to page 2 since that's when Jill first mentions her chat with Mr Cutts, but keep reading.

Jill if you're around a full report on that would be brilliant! Even better if he'll do an interview with you (better still if he'd do one with me but I suspect not....)

You said you had a thick skin, so why not just accept that you are in the minority in this particular group of web users - tw members - and let it go?

Go ahead and state your opinions, but if you're going to get upset everytime someone says something derogatory about autolink supporters then maybe it's best not to bother? Choice is yours.

Personally i like contrary views.

What do you expect? For someone to say, "hey, he's got a point you know, consider me converted!" - whereas that's possible it's quite unlikely.

You're going to have to accept that fact that you are alone in your views, or almost right here on this website.

Time to clean up guys, this one now closed in favor of this one

Thanks all.