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In this issue:

  • What's the Hype about Smart Tags?
  • About Web Insights

Issue 6original publication: September 7, 2001 last updated: February 11, 2004

Feature Article: What's the Hype about Smart Tags? by Deborah Christie, POP Interactive

There has been a lot of hype and confusion about Smart Tags. As a result there have been a lot of questions about what they are -- and whether you should be concerned about them.

There was reason for concern, but for now, you don't need to worry about Smart Tags. However, there are new technologies on the horizon that have similar functionality that we will be watching and informing you about. So stay tuned.

What are Smart Tags:

  • Browserwatch: Microsoft Smart Tags [http://browserwatch.internet.com/news/stories2001/news-20010611-1.html]
    [Editor's Note: This link is no longer available.]

    "Smart Tags is an insiduous technology: it will search Web pages for certain words or phrases and then insert links not intended by the creator of the Web page."

Microsoft had planned to include Smart Tags in Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6. These plans received a lot of press and caused quite a stir. It appears that partly due to this press, Microsoft subsequently decided not to include them. This change in plans did not get quite as much attention resulting in some of the ongoing concern and confusion about Smart Tags. So here are some resources to help sort things out.

More about what Smart Tags are and what they do:

  • Microsoft Assistance Center: Smart Tags in Office XP [http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010347451033&CTT=6&Origin=EC010553071033]

Press about the scrapping of Smart Tags:

  • internetnews.com: Microsoft Scraps Smart Tags Plan [http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/10_793261]
  • ZDNet: Smart Tags dropped from Windows XP [http://zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5093404,00.html]
    [Editor's Note: This link is no longer available.]

Other Smart Tag like technologies on the horizon:

  • Salon: The Parasite Economy [http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/02/parasite_capital/index.html]
  • ZDNet: Can networks harness P2P for profit? [http://zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5095127,00.html]
    [Editor's Note: This link is no longer available.]

Code for blocking Smart Tags:

Although it is unnecessary, at least for now, we thought we'd finish by providing you with the code that was intended to block Smart Tags.

  • Preventing Smart Tags
    Insert the this tag into the head of HTML page:
    <meta name="MSSmartTagsPreventParsing" content="TRUE">
About Web Insights

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Copyright © 2001 POP Interactive, Inc.
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