Tom_Dalton - 2:56 pm on Aug 8, 2005 (gmt 0)

Google in effect is inserting their adverts on your website - without your permission.

While I am just as surprised (and saddened) by this as anyone, I have a hard time agreeing with some of the statements I'm seeing thrown around here in response.

Chief among my objections to what has been said is this: Google is not touching anyone's websites. The copy on your server remains untouched. Anyone who visits your site and does not have the Google Toolbar installed still sees exactly what they would have seen. And even that is already interpreted by their own choice of browser -- if they use Lynx or something else, what they see will already be different than what you had in mind when you wrote the HTML code.

A user's (informed) decision to display your content in a different way is perfectly allowable.

This parallels discussions happening in many other areas: Tivo's skipping commercials, DVD content-editing services like Clearplay (which was just approved by Congress), and so forth.

Google's failure to inform is a problem. But the actual behavior of the tool is fine.