With my own search tool finally out the door, I feel I can talk about this more clearly.
About two weeks ago, it was discovered that Inquisitor mixed in, for certain queries, affiliate links to Amazon and the Apple Store at the top of the results, without in any way indicating that they weren’t results that come from Google or Yahoo. People justifiably reacted.
Unfortunately, people reacted rabidly. Dave Watanabe wrote a weblog post defending himself and the feature, and noted that most reactions were vastly overblown. He declared the existence of the feature “public knowledge”, and argued that “after over a year of soak-time in the public with no complaints it should be a non-issue”. Furthermore, he noted, “imagine my surprise when I wake up to a mailbox containing words unfit for publication, blogs declaring me as the biggest asshole in the world, and demands that people sabotage and steal my work”. (For reasons that will become apparent in just a bit, the weblog post has now been removed, so I can’t provide a link.)
After this reaction, I did what I thought I should do personally as someone who actually did pay for Inquisitor back when it was for pay, and who still uses it. I sent Dave an email. I told him that what was wrong wasn’t that the affiliate links were there, it’s that they were inserted without any mention of it. This destabilizes trust. From this point on, the possible thought chain is apparent: “If Inquisitor changes that, what else does it change? Am I not getting the entire story here? Will Inquisitor filter hits for competitive products, or censor results, since there are no qualms about altering the results?” None of these things apply - nor have they ever applied - to what Inquisitor does. But they are possibilities in a sea of outcomes, possibilities quickly approaching when you find out that the result list is in fact abridged.
That’s what I told him. I’ve supported Inquisitor once before, and I bet many of its users would jump at the chance to support it for, effectively, zero cost. I am under the impression that a lot of people thought the way I thought and sent similar emails.
Last Wednesday, Dave released a new version of Inquisitor which clearly marked the links as affiliates and offers the option to disable them. Even if you could perhaps argue that it should have been taken earlier, this was the perfect move.
Yesterday, as you may know, I released a new version of my own search tool, one whose newest feature borrows heavily from the kind of functionality Inquisitor has delivered first and best on Mac OS X. I had an opportunity to riff off of this. I opted not to. I believe in collegiality, and I believe that it is strongly to Dave’s credit that the next version that came out resolved every outstanding doubt. (To avoid accusations of just using this post to pimp my own product, which I’m not trying to do, I will omit its name and link here, although it’s really not hard to find in surrounding posts.)
Is there a point to this story? Yes. Be honest and forthright with those who use your product, listen closely to their suggestions and a better product will always follow. And, of course, respect each other. (As always.)