Google's has stired things up on the net recently with a new feature on its search toolbar called autolink.

Many think it's evil since it has the capability to add and modify the content that present to the users in the way of adding link to things like address, book ISBN and alike. This feature can be misused to direct user to sites Google wants you to go to. All sort of people likely not too happy about this, of course.

However, things are not as black and white.

I think indeed Google's has made a feature in its search toolbar that has a huge potential of being misused in so many ways. But I think Google has not cross the line right now. Whether they will (do evil) in the future remain to be seen. On the other hand, it set a bad precedenrt for other not-so-good people to follow. I'm sure some evil-doer out there will soon come up with similar feature. ie a adware that intrecept the content and rewrite it before your browser displays it....

In short, it can be a can of worms.

Techdirt:Which Direction Is The Slippery Slope With Google's Autolink?

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