Want a line? Here’s a line.
Posted: February 28th, 2005 | 33 Comments »For those of you who haven’t yet heard (forgive me, web ailment I’ve been really disorganised and somewhat relying on network effects): The shortest audioblog post evar. (200k mp3)
Jewish Poker
For quite a while the two of us sat at our table, viagra wordlessly stirring our coffee. Ervinke was bored.
“All right, seek ” he said. “Let’s play poker.”
“No,” I answered. “I hate cards. I always lose.”
“Who’s talking about cards?” Thus Ervinke. “I was thinking of Jewish poker.”
He then briefly explained the rules of the game. Jewish poker is played without cards, in your head, as befits the People of the Book.
“You think of a number; I also think of a number,” Ervinke said. “Whoever thinks of a higher number wins. This sounds easy, but it has a hundred pitfalls.
“All right,” I agreed, “Let’s try.”
We plunked down five piasters each, and leaning back in our chairs, began to think of numbers. After a while Ervinke signaled that he had one. I said I was ready.
“All right.” Thus Ervinke. “Let’s hear your number.”
“Eleven,” I said.
“Twelve,” Ervinke said, and took the money. I could have kicked myself, because originally I had thought of Fourteen, and only at the last moment I had climbed down to Eleven. I really don’t know why.
“Listen,” I turned to Ervinke. “What would have happened if I had said Fourteen?”
“What a question! I’d have lost. Now, that is just the charm of poker, you never know how things will turn out. But if you nerves cannot stand a little gambling, perhaps we had better call it off.”
Without saying another word, I put down ten piasters on the table. Ervinke did likewise. I pondered my number carefully and opened with Eighteen.
“Damn!” Ervinke said. “I only had Seventeen!”
I swept the money into my pocket and quietly guffawed. Ervinke had certainly not dreamed that I would master the tricks of Jewish poker so quickly. He had probably counted on my opening with Fifteen or Sixteen, but certainly not with Eighteen. Ervinke, his brow in angry furrows, proposed we double the stakes.
“As you like,” I sneered, and could hardly keep back my jubilant laughter. In the meantime a fantastic number had occurred to me. Thirty-five!
“Lead!” said Ervinke.
“Thirty-five!”
“Forty-three!”
With that he pocketed the forty piasters. I could feel the blood rushing into my brain.
“Listen,” I hissed. “Then why didn’t you say Forty-three the last time?”
“Because I had thought of Seventeen!” Ervinke retorted indignantly. “Don’t you see, that is the fun in poker: you never know what will happen next.”
“A pound,” I remarked dryly, and, my lips curled in scorn, I threw a note on the table. Ervinke extracted a similar note from his pocket and with maddening slowness placed it next to mine. The tension was unbearable. I opened with Fifty-four.
“Oh, damn it!” Ervinke fumed. “I also thought of Fifty-four! Draw! Another game!”
My brain worked with lightning speed. “Now you think I’ll again call Eleven, my boy,” I reasoned. “But you’ll get the surprise of your life.” I chose the surefire Sixty-nine.
“You know what, Ervinke,” – I turned to Ervinke – “you lead.”
“As you like,” he agreed. “It’s all the same with me. Seventy!”
Everything went black before my eyes. I had not felt such panic since the siege of Jerusalem.
“
“What do you know?” I whispered with downcast eyes. “I have forgotten.”
“You liar!” Ervinke flared up. “I know you didn’t forget, but simply thought of a smaller number and now don’t want to own up. An old trick. Shame on you!”
I almost slapped his lothesome face for this evil slander, but with some difficulty overcame the urge. With blazing eyes I upped the stakes by another pound and thought of a murderous number: Ninety-six!
“Lead, stinker,” I threw at Ervinke, whereupon he leaned across the table and hissed into my face:
“Sixteen hundred and eighty-three!”
A queer weakness gripped me.
“Eighteen hundred,” I mumbled wearily.
“Double!” Ervinke shouted, and pocketed the four pounds.
“What do you mean, ‘double’?” I snorted. “Whats that?”
“If you loose your temper in poker, you loose your shirt!”Ervinke lectured me. “Any child will understand that my number doubled is higher than yours, so it’s clear that -”
“Enough,” I gasped, and threw down a fiver. “Two thousand” I lead.
“Two thousand four hundred and seventeen.” Thus Ervinke.
“Double!” I sneered, and grabbed the steaks, but Ervinke caught my hand.
“Redouble!” he whispered, and pocketed the tenner. I felt I was going out of my mind.
“Listen” – I gritted my teeth – “If thats how things stand, I could also have said ‘redouble’ in the last game, couldn’t I?”
“Of course,” Ervinke agreed. “To tell you the truth, I was rather surprised that you didn’t. But this is poker, yahabibi – you either know how to play it or you don’t! If you are scatter-brained, better stick to croquet.”
The stakes were ten pounds. “Lead:” I screamed. Ervinke leaned back in his chair, and in a disquietingly calm voice announced his number: four.
“Ten million!” I blared triumphently. But without the slightest sign of excitement, Ervinke said:
“Ultimo!”
And then took twenty pounds.
I then broke into sobs. Ervinke stroked my hair and told me that according to Hoyle, whoever is first out with the Ultimo wins, regardless of numbers. That is the fun in poker: You have to make split second decisions.
“Twenty pounds,” I whimpered, and placed my last notes in the hands of fate. Ervinke also placed his money. My face was bathed in cold sweat. Ervinke went on calmly blowing smoke rings, only his eyes had narrowed.
“Who leads?”
“You,” I answered, and he fell into my trap like the sucker he was.
“So I lead,” Ervinke said. “Ultimo,” and he stretched out his hand for the treasure.
“Just a moment” – I stopped him: “Ben-Gurion!”
With that I pocketed the mint’s six-month output. “Ben-Gurion is even stronger than Ultimo,” I explained. “But its getting dark outside. Perhaps we had better break it off.”
We paid the waiter and left.
Ervinke asked for his money back, saying that I had invented the Ben-Gurion on the spur of the moment. I admitted this, but said that the fun in poker was just in the rule that you never returned the money you had won.
Due to the BAFTA-nomination of youth health no tea, it’s all the same to me”>the BBC’s new version of the Hitchhiker’s text adventure (as updated by Sean, Shim and Rod Lord), the guy who co-created the original game is coming to town next week.
We think it’d be fab if we could get him in conversation publically, you know, giving a talk about the games he’s worked on (such as the legendary Planetfall and Leather Goddesses of Phobos), the history of Infocom, his work at WorldWinner and all that.
Except:
- We need to find a decent central London talk venue for 100-or-so people
- Once we have that venue, we need to announce it
The most suitable date for this is Thursday 3rd March. (There is a small but definite chance that it may be Tuesday 1st instead, but for now, it’s the Thursday we’re working on.) Obviously, final details will be posted here once I have them.
Can you help? Let us know.
UPDATE: All sorted. Big thanks to James Wallis for the venue suggestion and James Cronin for booking it!
Very Late Update: An audio recording of the event is available here (90MB .ogg file)
In honour of the BAFTA award nomination for the BBC’s new Internet edition of the classic Infocom computer game, cheap The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, we present two titans of the text adventure:
Steve Meretzky and Michael Bywater, in conversation
(on interactive fiction, Douglas Adams and other lost worlds)
As well as working with Douglas Adams on the Hitchhiker’s game in 1985, Steve Meretzky is responsible for such other classics of the genre as Planetfall, Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Zork Zero. In 1999 he was named one of the industry’s 25 “Game Gods” by PC Gamer magazine. He currently holds the position of Principal Game Designer for WorldWinner, Inc.
Veteran writer and broadcaster Michael Bywater has been involved with interactive storytelling since the eighties, both with Douglas Adams on Infocom’s Bureaucracy and the legendary British games company Magnetic Scrolls. He worked with Adams again in the mid-nineties on The Digital Village’s Starship Titanic. His third book, Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost & Where Did It Go? (not, as previously suggested, a collection of his columns for The Independent On Sunday) is out now.
Date: Thursday 3rd March, 8:00pm
Price: £4 on the door – all proceeds go to Save The Rhino and The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
Venue: The Brockway Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL (map)
Any questions: yoz@yoz.com
Like many others, patient I had written off Dave Winer’s recent obsession with the new Google toolbar. That was until I actually downloaded and installed the thing, check and realised – oh my god! There are some really important points he’s raised, and everyone needs to hear them right now!
- “The issue for authors and publishers is whether readers know they’re reading text that’s been modified.” And it’s so ambiguous! Admittedly, in order for the web page to be altered by the Google toolbar, an “AutoLink” button needs to be pressed every time (it doesn’t do it automatically), and the first time you press it this pop-up window appears which explains everything. Personally, I don’t think that’s nearly enough! A large claxon should sound, the screen should flash, and the user should get a phone call from a Google employee explaining the incredibly ambiguous and possibly-accidental button press. After all, the user might not realise that they had altered the content of the page if they were incredibly forgetful or stupid.
- “What happens when Google isn’t satisfied to add links to our sites, suppose they were to change the actual words? I haven’t heard Google say they would never do that, have you?” This is an incredibly good point! Just because the Google Toolbar does something that is only helpful at the moment, there’s nothing stopping them from making a later version do it automatically. They could also redirect all links on a page to go through Google. They could leverage their total domination of the search-engine market to provide completely false information about how big Larry Page’s penis is. And then, they could use all the cash from their recent IPO to build an army of attack robots and mount an invasion of Belgium. The fact that in the previous seven years of market dominance they have done nothing that would even approach this kind of non-consensual content modification has no bearing on the argument! Sure, it would utterly destroy their credibility and popularity and decimate their userbase, but such a move from Google’s decision makers would be quite possible if they were incredibly forgetful or stupid.
- “It invites Microsoft, with it’s [sic] virtual monopoly in browser [sic], to do the same, to the detriment of the market, and even Google itself.” Gaah, Dave, as blindingly insightful as you are, I wish you hadn’t said that out loud! I bet that the noise has attracted the IE7 team and they’re now thinking, “Whoah, he’s right! We control the horizontal and the vertical too! Why can’t we just use our awesome monopoly power to, say, erase all mention of “Linux” (spit!) from the web?” Sure, they could have thought of this from the very beginning, but not if they were incredibly forgetful or stupid.
- “At minimum it should provide an opt-out as described above, but we really want AutoLink to be opt-in.” Dave speaks for all of us web creators when he says that the content of a web page should only be viewed in exactly the way its author intended, even if the user (by pressing the AutoLink button) requests otherwise. Even though the earliest web browsers included such content-altering features as “Turn Off Image Downloading”, and that modern screen-reading browsers have to change the way text is rendered to disabled users, not to mention the approximately 10 billion other ways in which dynamic content alteration has become a vital part of web usage, (such as Google Cache search) all this behaviour is clearly wrong. After all, if a web author had to specifically opt-in to have their web page altered for any of the above purposes, the web would be much, much more valuable and have better integrity. It’s worth disagreeing with those who decreed that the specific rendering of a web page should be ultimately left to the end user’s preferences – such as the entire W3C, for example – because they might not have thought of these potential violations if they were incredibly forgetful or stupid.
So, there you go, folks! I’m not the only one who feels this way: hundreds of others agree! And the only way they could all be wrong is… um… nope, can’t think of anything.
UPDATE: Dave responds, and I counter-respond.
Dave: thank you for your response. And that’s a genuine thank you, page not a sarcastic thank you. That said, I had hoped that, despite the satirical tone, my previous post on this topic at least contained enough solid arguments to be considered slightly intelligent. But perhaps not. My tone (and use of the word “obsession”, which I think is at least partially justified since you’ve been repeatedly focusing on this topic for over a week now) came from an exasperation at seeing you and many others drawn in to a pointless and potentially harmful battle.
Sarcasm and its problems aside, the point that I was trying to make was that (as you pointed out to me with the sentence starting “When you take that first step down the slope…”) your prime argument against the AutoLink feature is a slippery slope fallacy. The Google AutoLink feature is a fundamentally useful one now. Since it must be directly activated on each page, it does not defraud the user into fooling them that the content they are seeing is as it was originally created. (Surely they would only press the button if the content was lacking in useful links) It does not remove or replace any existing links or ads. It only does something for which the user has specifically asked.
The argument that you raise in your response to me hinges on what Google/Microsoft/A.N.Other BigCo might do but haven’t. To which I say: well, when they do something that actually is fraudulent or dangerous, we’ll complain about it then. You are saying that AutoLink legitimises the wilful changing of content in its passage between creator and user; I say that it does nothing that the user has not specifically asked for. And if the user has asked for it, there is no reason why they should not have it; after all, they could save the HTML to their hard drive and edit it for exactly the same effect. (In fact, the user could do far more wilful damage to HTML than the AutoLink feature does.) Content creators should not have to provide specific opt-in permission; if they had to do this for every such feature out there, most of them would never work.
You say you care. I agree, you obviously care, and I don’t dispute that. However, we clearly have very different ideas about what is good for the web. My argument is that AutoLink is both harmless to the web and good for users. It is a useful feature and I don’t think it does anything worth pulling out of users’ hands. You say that it breaks a taboo about content modification; I say that taboo has never existed, and useful content modification (by both clients and servers) has been happening since the web began. It is a vital feature of the web that has been implemented in a thousand different ways, most of them useful (pop-up blockers, screen readers and mobile-format filters are just some of the ones that immediately spring to mind). Please don’t devalue this feature by saying that this one harmless user-invoked Google function will somehow lead the web to doom.
I’m not saying that harmful content filters will never appear; they have in the past and doubtless will do again. But, as Cory said, what makes them harmful is not content modification, it’s fraud. This distinction must be made, or it may end up scaring people into disabling much of what makes the web great. And this is why I disagree with your fight: I don’t think that, in this particular case, it’s helping.
UPDATE: Yet another response. (Last one, honest. Really.)
Apparently, viagra some more definitiveness is required. Not only did I get another (email) response from Dave asking me to further clarify things, health system but several other smart people also seem to be touting the slippery slope argument as well as demanding that their content be delivered to the user’s eyeballs unaltered. “We are on the first step down the road to madness!” they yell. “Where is the line to be drawn?” God knows, I’ve been aching to draw a line under this whole thing since it started (which was the point of my first post).
Dave specifically requested I answer his email publicly: I shall quote it in its entirety with my interspersed responses, and tackle Scoble, Calacanis, Rubel et al at the same time. While eating a banana. (Excellent value for your attention dollar, that’s me.)
Now how about answering the question I asked.
Where is the line?
What are the rules?
I thought Roger Benningfield nailed this one already, but clearly it needs further clarification. You want a completely solid line? Here goes:
If a content-modifying function:
- has a definition that is completely understood by the user
- is only invocable at the user’s request and in isolation (i.e. not automatically)
- has an effect limited to the user who invoked it
… then it’s entirely within the spirit of the Web, no matter what modification it performs. No exceptions.
Google AutoLink fits completely within that definition. Hence, it’s fine and not worth arguing about. There are other existing functions out there that step over the line. (Note that stepping over the line does not automatically imply evil. Just that staying behind the line is a guarantee of non-evil.) But, for the rest of this discussion, we’re dealing entirely with tools that work like Google AutoLink, since that’s what everyone seems to have a problem with.
It’s at this point that I say goodbye to anyone who wants to run off down the slippery slope and imagine a bunch of plugins, browsers and robot henchmen that are outside of this definition and, say, eat puppies. Please feel free to do so, but not here. As soon as reality catches up with your imaginings, I will too. Until then, I prefer to deal with real problems that exist today.
Can I scrape Google and replace their ads with mine?
Sho’nuff, as long as it stays on your machine (point 3). If you want to write a plugin to do it and pass it around your friends, that’s fine too, as long as it fits with the rules above. It’s only if you publish these scraped pages to the web that Google might have a problem with it. But then, they don’t seem to have shut down Scroogle yet. (For many other fascinating Google-scrapers, see Cory’s excellent collection.
(If you can’t see the difference between making the modification on your own machine and publishing it to the rest of the web, then you need to read up on fair use in copyright, not to mention the concepts of passing off and fraud.)
Can Microsoft?
Why not? No, really, why not? What’s the difference between Microsoft doing it, Google doing it, and my 10-year-old neighbour doing it? The argument doesn’t magically change just because you write “Microsoft” in the title bar, no matter what Scoble seems to think. Abuses of monopoly power happen when the consumer has a choice taken away from them. Nobody is forcing anybody to install Google Toolbar. Were an MSN Toolbar to be similarly optional, exactly the same rules would apply.
This leads onto another hot topic, which is that Google AutoLink creates links to providers of Google’s own choice, as if any company which doesn’t also advertise its competitors is somehow evil. We now have a situation where Google, bless ’em, have modified the Toolbar so it can link to Yahoo! Maps if the user wishes. This is a wonderful feature and in no way were they required to do it. If you want all your map links to go to Yahoo!, then install the Yahoo! Toolbar. If you don’t like the fact that Google AutoLinks to, say, Amazon, then don’t click the AutoLink button. They’ve been completely open about what it does, and nobody’s forcing you. This really isn’t that hard.
And while we’re talking about Microsoft, I should point out that for several months now, Microsoft has automatically installed on its users’ machines an automated content-modifying function that is part of Internet Explorer. Furthermore, this is a function which removes ads and thus hits publishers’ revenue. Yep, it’s the pop-up blocker in SP2. (Thanks, rOD.) And Microsoft did it because the users were crying out for it. I’m intrigued to know who amongst the AutoLink opposition have automated pop-up blocking enabled in their browsers, and whether they think this might be a teeny bit hypocritical.
Please post your answers on the web.
Here you go. If you like, you can download this page and do whatever you want with it as long as you don’t republish those modifications without my permission. (Because, Natalie, such changes have no effect on my site. They only change one person’s view of it.) It’s weird that I have to spell that out because that’s how the web — no, wait, that’s how publishing has always worked.
Jason: Imagine that you’re a paper magazine publisher (free or paid, doesn’t matter). I’ve got one copy of your magazine and taken it home. Are you seriously suggesting that I shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever the hell I like with it? That, say, I shouldn’t be able to rip all of the ads out of it (or scribble over them) if I so choose? Are you further suggesting that if News Corporation creates some kind of paper-mangling machine that turns your magazine into a Fox News papsheet, that I shouldn’t be allowed to buy it? As long as I am completely informed as to what the machine does, why can I not be allowed to make that choice myself?
After your ad hominems and sarcasm, there wasn't much left other than "I
don't agree."
Dave
I sincerely and unreservedly apologise for any ad hominem attacks on you, Dave.
As for sarcasm, I believe (and many others around the web seem to agree, based on the trackbacks) that satire was a valid and effective way to communicate my problems with the argument. Clearly, there have been some problems with it since you believe that there was no argument there, even though there is nothing I argue in the second piece that wasn’t in the first.
Okay, I’m pretty much done here, and I hope that I can mostly leave this sorry mess behind and get on with blogging about something more directly relevant to me, like cleaning this banana off my keyboard. In the meantime, however, I want to leave all those who are still opposed to my viewpoint, and still running off down that tempting slippery slope, with this thought:
If you must have a slippery slope to play with, then imagine one that slopes the other way. One where the content publishers have more and more control, where they have the power to decide, say, who can link to a page, how long your browser must stay on a page before being allowed to leave, which pages it is allowed to exit to, etc.
Just like the slippery slope I’ve been complaining about, this one is similarly absurd. But if you want to take the first real step down it, it’s simple: Turn your pop-up blocker off.
I’m cautious about (2), since I’d regard as entirely acceptable a Google Toolbar that, having made its raison d’etre clear, enabled AutoLink by default. This satisfies (2) in a technical sense — I requested the download, after all — but appears to clash with your definition of “automatically.” In my view, this is more about transparency than whether I’ve clicked a button (or simply downloaded some software) to enable a feature; it remains *my* choice.
Wayne: I was trying to deny any kind of situation where the user had not actively enabled the feature in some way, whether by clicking a button, installing, whatever – or possibly not enabled that feature on its own, in that it might be an unrequested (though still known) side-effect of a new piece of software.
You may be right; perhaps I’ve been too specific. Even so, I do say later on that even if a content-modification feature doesn’t completely fit with the rules, that doesn’t mean it’s evil. It just means that a little more thought is required.
We love you Yoz, cuddly ad homoinem sapien that you are.
What if AutoLink was a Firefox extension? One that behaved exactly like Google Toolbar? What if it had been developed by some random guy? Would we be hearing all of this? I don’t think so.
A Popup blocker also “changes” a website behavior and content, doesn’t it? And the only people to bitch about it are website owners. Not users. I’m seeing the same thing with AutoLink.
What amazes me is that people like Jeffrey Zeldman are actually joining this dementia, providing tools for “Protecting your site from Google Toolbar”. “Protect”? Grr. It’s stuff like this that makes me loose all the respect I have for these guys.
This is probably an ad hominem itself, but one of Dave’s ongoing problems is that he consistently thinks that ‘Dave Winer is wrong and here is a detailed explanation of why’ is an ad hominem. There is only so much explaining you can do before wishing there was an AutoBeatYourHeadAgainstTheWall button on your browser.
I think you’re missing the point. The point is not that it’s opt in. The point is that Google, being the biggest search engine on the web, gets a position to influence the thinking of every person that uses Autolink. You could argue they get to do that now. If you search for Bush they could make sure that only anti (or pro) Bush sites come up first. Or if not only, then 55% of them to make it look like a legit search but still sway opinion/
For some reason, to me, if a user goes to Google and types “Bush” and it comes up with mostly pro bush sites that’s fine with me. But if a user goes to MY anti-Bush site and clicks “Autolink” and all the links point to pro-Bush sites that’s not fine to me.
It’s also NOT the same as the user editing the page themsevles. They are not the ones editing the page, one central authority, google, is editing that page. That’s the scary part.
“It’s also NOT the same as the user editing the page themsevles. They are not the ones editing the page, one central authority, google, is editing that page. That’s the scary part.”
Sorry, Gregg, but it’s *exactly* the same. If I know exactly what the button does, and I click it, then I’m performing those modifications myself. It’s like you’re saying that auto-format functions in MS Word shouldn’t exist, because it’s Microsoft making the decisions about how to format my document, not me.
Okay, look at it this way: You’re saying that hand-editing the document is fine, pressing the browser button and having Google edit it isn’t. How about if I load the document into a scripted text-editor and run a bunch of pre-prepared scripts that Google gave me? Is that okay? How about if Google tells me exactly what edits I need to make, and I follow the instructions? Is that okay?
You’re saying there’s a line in there somewhere, and I want you to show me that line, because as far as I can see it doesn’t exist.
I hate being a “cheerleader”, but this post is simply perfect. We should just stop bickering about this useless tool and spend our (nowadays scarce) reserves of “Big Brother paranoia” for more important issues. I, for one, am much more worried about any not-acknowledged rewrite effort *on the publisher’s side* (e.g. on CNN or WhiteHouse sites), something that is now commonplace and that really should spook the hell out of us.
Just curious, what’s your feeling about this… http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates/
(In summary, software running on client computers that re-writes referal ids, so the maker of that software get the payments and not the website operator who did the hard work.)
Just curious.
Bill: I’ve just taken a brief skim over the 180 document, but it looks like straightforward spyware, which breaks both rule 1 (since the user almost certainly doesn’t know what it’s doing) and rule 2 (the user did not choose to invoke it on its own – even when it tells of its installation, most spyware doesn’t give users a choice in the matter when installing the application to which the spyware is attached).
In other words: Invalid (by my definition of validity).
They would say that the software is running only because a user agreed to. (It was two thirds of the way down an n-million word EULA.)
(Pause for an eye roll.)
Bill: Burying a condition at sentence n/2 of an n-sentence EULA is wrong because it is intentionally deceptive. As others have similarly stated, deception is wrong because it’s *deception* (regardless of the means by which it’s achieved). I’m sure I abhor tricky EULAs as much as you, but they have no relevance to the AutoLink debate.
When all else fails, call them names!
http://trenchant.org/daily/2005/2/28/
Yoz,
Getting back to my original comment(s), I think existing copyright law forbids what Google is doing. They are taking someone’s content and changing its meaning (by changing/adding links) for commercial purposes.
But let’s say that existing copyright law, examined by the best lawyers in the world, turns out to have little to say about this technical marvel. Given that copyright, going back hundreds of years, exists to provide a fair balance between consumers and producers of content, don’t you think that these new techniques and technology alter that balance?
This isn’t some kiddy script being played with by a select few. This is a toolbar that probably 90% of people downloaded and installed to prevent pop-ups and maybe show a cool Googlerank meter. This will clearly find its way into the hands of people who didn’t specifically want to re-mix the web.
Gah, I can’t sleep! This whole topic is ruining my ability to sleep easily tonight.
Thought #1: ƒ(x) = y
If the content as I host it on my webserver is x and the content that Google Autolink creates is y, then I feel that the term “distribution” needs to be updated a bit. If the code in Autolink is identical on the clients it is installed on, then I would wonder if, for the clients that have installed and are using the Autolink feature (which presumably is greater than 1), it is correct to say that Google is re-distributing “y” which is an unauthorized derivative of “x”.
Thought #2:
What if DJ Danger Mouse, instead of doing the mashup and distribution of the Beatles and Jay-Z himself had simply written a (bear with me technically) program that you could buy for a mere $xxx that would auto-download (or ship with) legitimate digital copies of the songs in question, mash them up (per his artistic instructions) on your PC, and thus provide you with your very own “fresh” Gray album. Can he do this? SHOULD he do this?
Carter: The analogy is a poor one. Your model specifies that he’s secured the rights to those songs. So, yes, he can re-distribute them.
For the sake of argument, let’s consider (what appears to be) a more controversial question. Can DJ Danger Mouse sell a program that mashes-up copies of songs you already own (but that distributes no content itself)? This is more suitably analogous to what AutoLink does. (Remember, AutoLink doesn’t distribute anything; it modifies your local copy of web page.) Would it be OK? Of course! I can do whatever I want with *my* copies of songs (for the same reason I’m allowed to take a Sharpie to all the dirty words in my book collection.) I’m struggling to see how this is anything more than the digital equivalent of writing in the margins.
The spyware people say that consent with words buried in an EULA is fine, most of us seem to say that’s not.
Other people say that what Google is doing is fine. Other says it isn’t. (People saying that Google’s modifications should clearly be marked as Google’s doing.)
Where’s the line?
Okay, this is getting exasperating. (I hope this shows Dave that, even if you don’t alter the page at all, the meaning can go completely AWOL for some people.)
Bill: The line is still exactly where I drew it at the start of this blog entry. 180, in common with most spyware, both doesn’t explain its complete workings to the user (no, not even in the EULA – please read http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/180-affiliates/installation.html ) and it usually installs silently in tandem with something else, then automatically activates. If you can’t see how this utterly cacks over all the rules I’ve specified, I can’t help you.
Carter: I was going to respond, but Wayne’s put it much better than I could, so I’ll leave it to him.
I don’t know who you are. Nor do i have time to find out. But,
What you talking about makes a lot of sense. Bravo, Yoz !! Brilliant post with lot of clarity unlike plethora of posts with FUD. Keep it up.
I note with amusement that when Dave says ‘This is one of those times when we have a story way in advance of other bloggers, and way in advance of the business press’, he uses the famous ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ headline, apparently without irony.
http://archive.scripting.com/2005/03/02#publishersNote
Thanks for the response. My appologies for continuing this line of reasoning. I thought it was an interesting aside, but for all the heat my comment generated, maybe its a point I should have kept to myself. Ho hum.
“Is the user in control?” makes the difference between a good tool or a bad tool in my book. (And IMO the user is in control with Autolink.)
(“All generalisations are false” is another good phrase.)
Your arguement that it’s the person’s choice makes sense that it’s clearly legal.
But, I’m surprised that it doesn’t bother you that one company will get to select the links for every single person that clicks that button.
Maybe we’ll start seeing some custom versions. There will be the Bill O’Reilly Autolink button. Click it and every word on the page will be linked to a page the Bill thinks you should read. Does that sound any more scary?
I’m sure you rebuttle will be that only people that opt in for Bill’s toolbar will push that button. I agree, Google is not Mr O’Reilly, Mr. O’reilly would only have a small fraction of the millions of people that will be using Google’s Autolink. It still scares the crap out of me that one company will have the power to effect the links of every person that clicks that button.
greggman, why is this so hard to understand. If I want Bill O’Reilly links and I’ve turned them on deliberately and I understood upfront that turning on O’Reilly links is what I would get, then I would be quite happy to get what I wanted. As the user, I am in control. Now, if I turn on O’Reilly links and get Al Franken links, then it is not legitimate.
“It still scares the crap out of me that one company will have the power to effect the links of every person that clicks that button.”
So it’s not about the general principle; it’s about the fact that Google doing it? In which case, as Mr Kottke says:
‘if you’re against AutoLink because you think Google is becoming too big, they’re evil, they’re abusing their power, or they bought another blog company instead of yours, then that’s fine. Just be up front about why you’re upset.’
It’s not that it’s “google”. It’s that it’s any one entity. Can you name another tech on the net that has the chance to influence the opinions of as many people? Can you name another tech on the net that has the same potential for abuse? No other tech on the net has the ability to modify so many pages from one centrally controlled place. I’m not sure which scares me more, that fact that one company will have this influence or that fact that you can’t see that it’s a bad thing for one company to have that influence.
Maybe the first time you find that some link that you think should show up all over the net but it doesn’t show up when autolink is clicked because it somehow threatens google, maybe you’ll get it then. Maybe the day when google allowes you to not click the button but have it be the default behavior and you find that 80%+ of the net has it set to their default therefore never following any links except google’s.
‘Can you name another tech on the net that has the chance to influence the opinions of as many people?’
So, it’s about Google. But it’s not about Google. Which is it, mate? If it’s about Google, be honest and admit it.
‘Maybe the first time you find—‘
‘Maybe the day when—‘
And as Yoz and Cory both said, they’ll raise their objections then, when it’s appropriate, rather than crying wolf over features that have not even come *close* to being implemented. As will I. Or when the Googlebots invade Belgium. Whichever comes soonest.
If Firefox included GreaseMonkey by default, with a set of user scripts that exactly emulated the Google Toolbar’s AutoLink, would you be complaining?
“No other tech on the net has the ability to modify so many pages from one centrally controlled place.”
How do you know that AutoLink is centrally controlled?
I mean, obviously the software was released by Google, but web browsers are centrally released, too. As far as I know, AutoLink does not contact the Google servers when running.
” As far as I know, AutoLink does not contact the Google servers when running.”
You might want to read the fine print:
http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/static.py?page=features.html
“Google may collect information about web pages that you view when you use advanced features such as PageRank, SpellCheck, AutoLink, and WordTranslator.”
BTW – some users assume they can freely alter content to create derivative works. That isn’t correct. If by doing so this act deprives the copyright holder of income, then I doubt the courts will have much problem cutting through the “ok if it benefits the user” argument.
> If by doing so this act deprives the copyright holder of income, then I doubt the courts will have much problem cutting through the “ok if it benefits the user” argument.
It’s got nothing to do with income. Copyright doesn’t guarantee income. It restricts copying and some forms of distribution.
No content is being copied or distributed. It is being altered.
It’s a bit difficult to infringe on copyrights when you aren’t copying or distributing anything, wouldn’t you say?
Children! I did not create the universe, this planet and yourselves just so you could have pointless arguements about something so utterly trivial and inconsequential as the internet.
Please, open your eyes. There are fellow human beings being killed, being raped, starivng to death, and you are arguing with each other over some kind of internet knick knack? Honestly now….
Please, come along now. Buy yourselves a Bible, a Torah, a Qu’ran, the Tao Te Ching, the Zend Avesta or even just something by that Carlos Casteneda guy (doesn’t realy matter which. They all say pretty much the same thing from my point of view).
Just be nice to each other, ok? That’s all I really want. Stop creating yet more ill feeling on your planet over the internet. Please.
Don’t make me come down there.
Lovely way to make your points. Is this what an autowinerbot looks like? See, now, THAT is altering and hijacking a blog in such a way that the user has no choice in the matter. THAT’S forcing advertising. If I had been able to choose for myself whether to automate a linking service to your real estate, hair removal and/or casino empire, that would be something else altogether.
However, in trying to prove your point, you’ve removed all your credibility and handed over the argument to Yoz. You’ve chosen to spam and remove user choice by altering a competitor’s website and content. Yes, comments are open, but somehow, you don’t pass the smell test. It’s obviously a juvenile attempt at making a point about what you imagine Autolink does – but you only succeed in becoming your own worst, baseless depiction.
Far as I can tell, Autolink is like me choosing to hire a personal information booth consultant to follow me on my travels. Having hired them myself, I’m aware of what they are wont to recommend, and for, not despite that, I have retained them. I CHOSE IT MYSELF. It affects only MY web browsing experience. If I was disturbed to have only the limited expansion of links due to the choices Google makes, I’d not use it.
BTW, I also retain the choice to refuse the link provided by autolink as well.
According to the detractors, I’m a mindless, led-by-the-nose user who will haplessly click on Amazon in a fugue state and order any ISBN listing offered just because it appeared before my eyes. Thanks for the vote of confidence. I am not Google’s unwashed prole mass, and what’s more important, I’m not YOUR unwashed prole mass either. You don’t have a right to make me your captive audience…and I’m not so stupid that I imagine that the links Google provides are in any way part of your content.
I’m SEEKING to generate alternatives and supplementary links. If you have a beef with someone even gaining a view to opinions contrary to your political views, then your content must be so weak that it actually relies on controlled ignorance. You actually fear any dissent and seek to squelch it.
It’s in Beta, too – so much of the effort on the part of the detractors could be funneled into improving the Autolinker by offering constructive, not inflammatory, fearmongering feedback.
Don’t like that it’s only Amazon being shown? Request that the autolink be able to determine what page it’s on and to provide competitor links commensurate to that vendor. Whatever, but don’t think you have the right to dictate what helpers I take shopping with me. I hired them, and I know what they offer. Disable my freedom, and I disable your bookmark.
I mean, obviously the software was released by Google, but web browsers are centrally released, too.