First there was the Great Wall of China. And now there is the Great Wall of Google.
China built its wall specifically to keep out the invading Mongol hordes.
Google, on the other hand, seems to have built its wall for nothing more than graffiti.
The “wall” is called Sidewiki.
Sidewiki puts a frame around any web site you visit so it appears that you’re on a particular site… when you’re really just on Google.
Furthermore, Sidewiki gives you a free license to say whatever you want “on” any page on the entire Internet — without notifying the site owner.
This is the equivalent of graffiti. And it doesn’t matter if the graffiti looks good or not; it’s still graffiti!
In case you’ve not read anything about Sidewiki, you might start here because of the screen shots. Then you might want to jump on over to Michel and Sylvie Fortin’s web site and check out The Google Sidewiki Controversy.
This is an important issue. And even if it doesn’t affect you yet, it probably will. So I recommend you take some time to learn about Sidewiki.
Of course, the way Google is marketing Sidewiki is fairly innocuous: “Contribute to the web by publishing your comments.”
“Contributing to the web” sounds so nice and inclusive, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, Sikewiki is inclusive for everybody except the site owner. It hijacks the conversation that might otherwise happen on a blog, forum, or customer support system — and puts that conversation on Google.
It effectively cuts the site owner out of the social fabric of the very web sites he/she has created!
As Sylvie so eloquently points out, Sidewiki could easily be used for many nefarious activities. For instance:
- Bad-mouthing a competitor.
- Offering your own product for sale right beside a similar product.
- Posting download links for paid products right next to the sales page.
- Redirecting traffic from a popular site to your own site.
- And you can do all this without the site owner’s immediate (or eventual) knowledge!
What makes Sidewiki so bad for web site owners is that there’s no good way to see what people are saying about your pages. You would literally have to check every page on every site you own — every day! — just to be on top of what was happening on Sidewiki.
In a word, impossible.
I’m generally a big fan of what Google is doing, but I have to say that Sidewiki is one of the worst ideas they’ve ever had. I sincerely hope they’ll reconsider the impact of this tool — and either redesign it or remove it from the web completely.
Let me know what YOU think by leaving a comment below.
-Ryan M. Healy
P.S. Sidewiki makes DL Guard more important than ever before. DL Guard protects your information products from thieves who would try to steal your paid content from you.
I bought a copy of DL Guard and have been using it for 2+ years, so I highly recommend it. You can learn more about DL Guard here.
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