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Microsoft's upcoming 'Smart Tags' browser feature will allow the browser to identify words or phrases in pages, as it loads them, and then dynamically modify the pages with a link to other pages. This feature will allow Microsoft to modify the content of pages without their owners' consent.
Potential uses include providing a Smart Tag to point to word definitions, pointing to suppliers of a product related to a word, or to simply divert users to other sites to increase their traffic.
Many websites rely on advertising to survive. These tags will compete directly with ads and with links already placed in the page by the original page authors and publishers. As such, they may be comparable to a local cable provider inserting additional ads into a broadcast stream without the permission of the publisher. Diluting the advertising capabilities of websites may cost them some of their advertising business. Microsoft, on the other hand, will be in a position to offer and sell keywords to the highest bidder.
Since a means will be provided for the user to change the destination of the tags, it will be argued that Microsoft isn't the responsible party. Microsoft, however, is well aware of the 'power of the default'. Controlling the default behaviour of a product is frequently sufficient to determine how most users will use the product. If Microsoft provides a default set of destinations for Smart Tags, their responsibility can't be entirely denied. Microsoft will still be responsible for the default set, which, in practice, will probably account for the majority of Smart Tag usage.
Until, of course, another Microsoft-compatible virus comes along and replaces the Smart Tag database with a largish collection of pornography site links. It will be quite a shock for the inexperienced user when their brand new Microsoft browser persistently refers them to websites that can get them fired!
In any event, the ability of a users to change the tag destinations does provide the above rationalization to deflect responsibility from Microsoft. In practice, however, it doesn't seem very useful for a user to load Smart Tag links to websites that the user is already familiar with.
To an end user, however, Smart Tags are, at worst, just a new form of spam; another method for unsolicited communications to intrude into their lives and consume the bandwidth of their attention. And, like email spam, the meta command required to disable smart tags will consume actual network bandwidth wherever it is used. Ultimately, the end users of the Internet will pay real money for this use of bandwidth, whether they think it is worthwhile or not.
Unlike some other forms of spam, however, the end user can disable this variety with a little initiative even if it eventually is enabled by default. Website publishers, of course, do not have the end user's voluntary relationship with Microsoft and are truly involuntary victims here.
The addition of Smart Tags is a content change to a web page. Such a change is not merely a presentation or formatting change like those that browsers have always performed. It is a content change in a similar way as if I republished a document marked-up with the addition of my own preferred references while leaving the original text intact. On the web, however, this is complicated by the fact that embedded links are an integral part of the content.
The opt-out meta tag that Microsoft provides for websites to add to each and every one of their pages demonstrates both Microsoft's arrogance and their understanding of the power of the default. They know that the vast majority of pages will never be modified with the disabling meta tag; the amount of work necessary to accomplish that task would be staggering. Further, they realize that they can simply require a slightly different format of the meta tag to opt out in the next version of their browser, rendering previous opt-out efforts obsolete.
An obvious solution to these problems with Smart Tags is for Microsoft to switch to an 'opt-in' policy for website publishers. If a publisher believes that the Smart Tags feature is desirable to end users, then that publisher can add an enabling meta tag and allow Microsoft's derivitive works of their pages to be shown. The publisher, by adding the opt-in meta tag, would implicitly authorize Microsoft to add new links en mass to their pages.
[This website is not compatible with the use of Smart Tags; their use in the modification and display of our documents is a violation of our copying policy and copying privileges are not granted for the purpose of creating such derivative works.]
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