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Google Tool Bar
This has prolly been around before...
"Google has decided that they are now going to link advertisements to any word on any webpage that they wish, as long as the user is running the Google toolbar. For example, if I used the word "viagra" in this article, a user surfing this page would find that the word appears underlined with a hotlink like so: viagra Clicking that word would send you to the website of any vendor who had paid Google to advertise based on that word. The profit potential of this gambit entirely depends upon the number of people who have installed the Google toolbar, which at last count numbered in the millions.
For the techies out there, this is conclusive proof that the Google toolbar is capable of performing full http socket intercepts and parsing the datastream. Big brother, anyone?
Whether or not your website is a member of the Adsense program makes no difference- Google is now going to collect ad revenue on every webpage on earth. And they aren't going to pay the website owners anything. Zilch. Nada.
The interesting thing is that Microsoft tried to do the exact same thing some time ago, back when it was called Smart Tags, but was shouted down by privacy groups and web netizens in general. They said it would give Microsoft an almost instant-monopoly of the online ad market. But I guess as long as Google gets that monopoly- it's ok.
All hail our new benevolent dictators Larry and Sergey!"
An incredible reminder that this is going to ruin alot of revenue for some folks.
Are there work arounds? I thought I saw one somewhere...
Anyone?
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