Yes, someone has come up with a way to do this already: http://www.threadwatch.org/node/1562. I’m going to have to make a little time to implement this, because while I haven’t had a problem yet, I don’t want to wait until I do have a problem.

It amazes me how many people regard this as acceptable because Google is doing it. It’s no different to me than any other spyware that adds links to my site. I don’t care who is doing it. It doesn’t matter that in its present form I only really need to worry about book ISBNs, since everything else they currently AutoLink to looks relatively innocuous, I don’t want to be caught off guard by any changes.

Am I paranoid? No, just don’t trust it to remain that simple for long.

On the other hand, it sounds like Barnes & Noble will be putting up a fight over this one as soon as they figure it out. I’ve read that a lot of people are calling them to let them know about it, so I do expect a legal challenge to this practice soon. I wonder if it will have an impact on other spyware? Much bigger companies going at it with this case, after all, so it might just set the right precedent if things go the way I would like to see it go.