Nathan over at InsideGoogle points out the problems in the newest update to Google Video which includes continuous playback on by default:

Problem is, while you think you are scoring points entertaining the rabbi, as soon as it is done, what starts playing (with no warning)?

“We Are Lesbians”

A video of lesbian gimmick duet t.a.T.u. performing, with a new audio track making fun of the fact that they are, indeed, lesbians.

I’ll admit chuckling and I’m sure many others willl at least smile when reading Nathan’s piece but he makes an excellent, serious point. It’s bad form to have continuous audio or video on by default in the browser that plays serendipitious selections. Equally bad is onload audio on web pages. Sure sign of being a despised homepage, just load with a bunch of crappy midi files to autoplay onload. Google should know better and make this off by default.

So many times defaults are taken for granted by companies. Head’s up to the powers that be: we can actually turn things on if we want to.

You know why they play with defaults and convenient URLs and sites preloaded though, don’t you? Because it’s big business to preload crap into a program under the guise of being helpful. Where do you think Firefox is making their millions?

‘Free’ continues to be a misnomer on the web.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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