Much ado about AutoLink

I guess I just don't understand the hysteria initiated by Dave Winer and others over Google's AutoLink technology. Their argument, as best I can summarise it, is that functionality at the client end that inserts additional links (map links over addresses, amazon links over ISBNs, etc.) into webpages is unethical, even evil, despite the fact that the process is user-triggered and never automatic. The opponents of this functionality believe that this changes the content itself, and that authors should be able to opt-out.

The slippery slope argument has been deployed more than a few times; perhaps people are unaware that malware that rewrites webpages has been around for years, and that it's much more self-serving and clandestine than Google's service, often not even betraying its own presence; it's difficult to imagine how any product of a legitimate company could get close to the genuinely nasty software that already exists in great numbers.

In a post that really gets to the core of the issue, Yoz Grahame describes his criteria for a well-behaved content transformation utility:

If a content-modifying function:

1. has a definition that is completely understood by the user
2. is only invocable at the user's request and in isolation (i.e. not automatically)
3. has an effect limited to the user who invoked it

... then it's entirely within the spirit of the Web, no matter what modification it performs. No exceptions.

Google Autolink qualifies, and Yoz thinks that makes it fine. I agree.

I don't recall ever making an agreement with any website owner that I would interpret and render your page code in a manner dictated to me. Once your HTML enters my computer, then as long as I don't republish any changes, it's fair game for me to munge, manipulate and corrupt as I see fit. If I want to replace every occurrence of the word 'Bush' with the word 'poopyhead', if I want to remove every banner ad so that I never see them, if I want to block popups and malicious JavaScript, then I can and I will. I'll change the presentation as I see fit, and do the same with the content. And I will make use of any third party software I choose to help me do these things.

None of these client-side transformations infringe the rights of content producers -- no matter how paranoid -- in any way. Your work isn't compromised simply because I have chosen to customise my view of it. What happens between my network socket and my web browser is my business, not yours.

If, as a web content producer, you have a problem with this, then a) I really think you might be in the wrong job/hobby, and b) I suggest that you stop offering your work for the time being and start developing DRM for webpages, so that you can ensure that your page is only ever viewed in its pristine, pixel-precise state... because all this crap about your HTML being 'sacrosanct' is antithetical to the spirit of the web.

(There are smart people on both sides of the argument, and of course there's a possibility that I'm missing something. So if you want to change my mind, then show or describe to me any transformation that you could make to your personal view of my site -- or a theoretical site I could own -- that would make me give a damn, and I will do a 180. And if you oppose AutoLink, go and sign the petition... at a measly 88 signatures at the time of writing, it's making the vocal look like a bit of a minority.)