"Recently there's been something of an explosion in the weblogging world over the "AutoLink" feature in Google's new toolbar. If the hype is to be believed, AutoLink is pure evil. Except you shouldn't believe the hype, and it's not AutoLink that people are really up in arms about."

"This is simply the first step down a slippery slope which will end with third parties slipping their advertisements into his pages via client-side applications, and that [the original author/site] won't see a dime from it." It amounts to no more than spyware.

"So what are they really crying out against? They're afraid of Google: there's a growing fear in several circles that Google will become "the next Microsoft". "

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