I think there's one fundamental difference, which you noted: MS's SmartTags were enabled by default, users got them by default whether they asked for them or not, and there wasn't any way to remove the SmartTags functionality. Google's Autolink, by comparison, is only present if the user decides they want to install it, and it only places links on a page when a user deliberately asks for it to place the links. There are a great number of things that are perfectly fine if someone asks for them but that aren't fine if they're done to unsuspecting and non-consenting individuals. This is just another of them.

As far as Autolink's links not differing from standard links, I think that's OK. They wouldn't be there at all if I hadn't deliberately said "Put them there.", so there's no confusion. If I didn't want them, I wouldn't have asked for them. Similarly the lack of opt-out isn't a problem. If I wanted to opt out, I simply wouldn't press the button or install Autolink. And as far as the site serving up the page opting out, not relevant. I'm the user. The web site has no say over what I do to the page once I've loaded it, nor should they. It's my computer, my browser. If a web site wants to control how it appears, they can buy me a computer and maintain it for me and set whatever rules they want. Until then, my computer displays things the way I want them displayed.

Again, the critical thing here is that I've asked for Autolink to do this, first by installing it at all and second by hitting the "add links to this page" button. This is in a completely different class from having links added without my asking for them by software I hadn't explicitly asked to be active.

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Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/304/30791#30791