Shaddows - 10:20 am on Oct 16, 2008 (gmt 0)

Ok, how about- would you release a browser that records key strokes.

The point is that an assumption that a huge corporation wouldnt do something that would risk their reputation is clearly wrong.

Doing something that would destroy their reputation and/or business model is much less likely, and much more stupid, yet still these multi-billion dollar companies succeed in doing one or both.

And this particular infringement by google isnt exactly what the Americans amongst us might call a 'game-changer', at least for all those USERS (not webmaster/ SEOs).

Ok, even though I said 'almost', undetactable is probably not reasonable. Detectable certainly by those such as Whitenight, whom I understand has a very large database and a reasonably clear idea about how a page should rank on merit, or by SEOs who are specifically looking at their own pages, or analysing a competitor page to see why it ranks and the ONLY INSTANCE is in EMBEDDED ADSENSE advertising.

However, I stand by "unintrusive", although maybe it should be "unobtrusive". Either way, its not in-your-face obvious. As such, its not really a big risk, and every little bit of extra revenue helps. Especially when you share price is crashing, the economy is tightenign and Ad revenues might sensibly be predicted to drop (usually people spend less on advertising during a downturn, though this may not turn out to be the case online)

[edited by: Shaddows at 10:25 am (utc) on Oct. 16, 2008]