AltaVista isn't the worst perpetrator of internet trends I'd rather not ever see. Maybe they're one of the front runners, but I trust that a good case can be made to show that other portals and mega-sites, also in the race to corner the market on making money from the internet, are doing their part to advance unnecessary and undesirable web trends. Perhaps my main reason for picking on AltaVista when I focus on examples of this sort of thing stems from that old adage You always hurt the one you love.

Way back then (is it five years ago already? was there really life before the web?) AltaVista represented all that was good about the internet. The idea then was true free access to desirable information. Individuals and institutions were making that information available to others because "information wants to be free", and because only when you made it available to others who could then build on it and incorporate it into new frameworks and meanings was it able to fulfill its true function.

So we've leveled our share of criticism toward AltaVista in the past. The last time focused on how portals want to bring us to market, rather than to bring information to us, which is, I guess, a similar theme to this month's column as well.

Go to: Free