I love Google. In the spirit of that love, I point out something about my dear friend that is bugging me, and point you, gentle reader, at a petition addressed to Google, requesting a change.

Google has recently debuted a feature in their web browser add-on toolbar called AutoLink. What it does is turn text in webpages into links to things related to them--for example, addresses, book ISBN numbers, etc., are turned into links to...uh, I haven't seen it myself, but I assume, maps to the addresses, web pages about the books (perhaps in some online store?) I have no problem with Google providing these links to their toolbar users. What bothers me is that they are altering people's web pages without the publisher's consent.

If that bothers you too, please sign the online petition, Google, Please AutoLink Ethically. The petition requests that web pages only be altered by AutoLink if the web page contains some sort of opt-in tag authorizing it, and that for pages not authorizing it, the links be moved out of the web page, and into a menu on the toolbar, or some such place.