h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've already experienced this... my computer was 'infected' with a memory resident program which must have installed itself with some download or other. Whenever it came across words like gamble, dice, casino, roulette, winner, etc., in Internet Explorer, it would make them links (distinguishable from normal links by a high visibility double yellow underline).

This was INCREDIBLY annoying, not only because it was installed without my permission. Even if I did knowingly let it install, I would still find it invasive and frustrating.

I think it's an extremely bad idea, and yet another way of Microsoft creating a monopoly by flooding the end user with so much content that competitors don't get a look in.

Oh yeah - I ought to point out that the program I experienced wasn't Microsoft. But I can guarantee that theirs will be just as annoying

How much do you want to bet that the 'smart tags' almost never link to anything remotely relevant or useful? And here's the real killer... what if it lays over the text of a link with a link? The user wants to visit the link to the H2G2 article on Ice Cream Jokes, and instead get whisked off to an e-vendor of ice cream cones? Forget about it.

Having my own websites I am not looking forward to having to add the tag
{meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE"}
to every page just to combat an intrusion by a large company who wants to take away my sales and give them to some one who pays them money.

I am at this time re-writing all my websites - now I have to include this tag so if I advertise say 'Teddy Bears' my prospective customer is not wisked of to some other site that is selling them - I wouldn't mind if that other site had a link back to my site but this wont be the case. Mutual linking is, I think, a good idea but Smart tags are a bit one sided for my liking.

Just imaging if h2g2 had links wisking you to other sites and have no worries about breaking the house rules.

Rant over
veggie