John Robb dislikes Google’s new toolbar feature:

This is adware. Google is pushing its advertising into content it does not own. Why not just parse the page and replace the banner ads the content provider is running with Google banners? This boils down to invasive marketing by an increasingly unscrupulous company. The pressures of justifying a $50 billion valuation are showing…

I think he’s right. The largest (only?) part of Google’s biz model is based on selling ads on content it doesn’t own. That’s unlikely to succeed simply because they’d be alienating the very people they depend on. This’ll be interesting, Google has a way of not being stupid.

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