Google notebook and ads

I've been using Google notebook for some time even though I don't necessarily go back to all the notes I kept from reading stuff on web. Nevertheless I found it useful to save the source and information easily.

This morning I was reading an article about how New York Times and The Washington Post buy Google ads to put their coverage on searchers' search result page, I found it interesting and put it in my Google notebook for further reference.

Something to my surprise has happened. I saw a advertisement banner in my Google notebook thread, just right in the middle of the quote I copied from the article.


After all there's no free lunch in the world. I can understand Google develops its services and needs to profit from them. But I think Goolge can do a better job to have the ads in a nicer way.

Google had provided services changing how information gets distributed. We wouldn't know if that would had happened if Google hadn't done so. However I constantly think that Google might have become information monopoly. It archives conversations, publications, pictures and everything going on the web in every country in the world. It reads (supposedly the machine does this.. ) our readings, thoughts, exchanges with friends and family photos.

I used Flickr before but am gradually turning away from it now. Why do I need a Yahoo account to access a service I had used for long? What if I don't like to have a Yahoo account, what choice I have under this circumstance? If I had used Flickr for even longer time, with all my photos ALL in Flickr and no where else, what power I have to fight against the new policy?

This has made me thinking about what "market failures" and government intervention would really mean when there's no border in the Internet world.