We were originally going to cover this yesterday, but the sudden appearance of the "Redmond Justice" appeals court decision sort of overshadowed things a smidge. Remember a few weeks ago, when word got out that Microsoft was planning on sticking a feature called "Smart Tags" into Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6? The idea was that Microsoft's operating system and browser would transform ordinary, unlinked words in web pages into links that the page's webmaster never intended in the first place. This "feature," you can imagine, struck some people as the final, incontrovertible evidence that Bill Gates and Satan are one and the same-- or at least close poker buddies. (Certainly the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg thought so.)

Microsoft, for its part, maintained that it just couldn't see what all the fuss was about; so the Department of Justice web site viewed in IE6/WinXP just happens to link to a slew of Microsoft goods and services-- so what? Besides, this innocuous little "improvement" is turned off by default (um, if was so harmless, why?), and webmasters have the option of adding code to any pages they'd like to remain unmolested by Smart Tags. Of course, that code would have to be added to each individual page, but isn't that what webmasters are paid for?

But enough people were upset by Microsoft's transparent attempt to leverage its operating system monopoly (and now its browser monopoly) to turn the Internet into one huge MSN portal, that the company was forced to reconsider its rollout of the Smart Tags feature-- for a little while, at least. According to an update by Mr. Mossberg pointed out to us by faithful viewer Matt Kopko, Microsoft has decided to ditch Smart Tags in the final version of Windows XP, slated for a late October release, primarily to avoid a firestorm of controversy; "we got way more feedback than we ever expected," says the company's Jim Allchin. You really have to love a company that's still surprised and baffled when, say, people actually complain that they don't want their copyrighted material transformed by default into free advertising for someone else's business.

Microsoft plans to return to the drawing board and revive Smart Tags later on, in some unspecified less controversial form. In the meantime, they hope to compensate their users for the loss of such a useful tool by adding in a new feature which simply restricts all web-browsing to Microsoft-owned sites. It's not a problem, though-- users will easily be able to turn it off in the Preferences. So quit complaining.