Google acquired Meebo for $100m last month and has already started to shut down the advertising service's products. Ten years ago Meebo would clearly have been labelled as a nefarious data-slurping and spyware operation and would have probably spawned a web-wide boycott. How times have changed. Meebo's clients are mega- …

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Monday 11th June 2012 14:35 GMT Anonymous Coward

Hmmmm

Buy a competitor then shut it down leaving only your services, surely the regulators must see this is anti-competitive. It's not like they even tried to integrate any of the stuff into their services.

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1. Monday 11th June 2012 16:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: Hmmmm
  
  Only if the action severely limits competition in a significant market to the detriment of the public. This looks like Google buying the customer relationship that Meebo had. So integrating the back-end.
  
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Monday 11th June 2012 14:36 GMT Haku

Toolbars? We don't need no stinkin' toolbars!

Does anyone actually purposely install and use toolbars in their browsers these days?

That is beyond those who have unwittingly had ones 'forced' upon them through software installations, and not including the single icons of the likes of Adblock+, Noscript etc.

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1. Monday 11th June 2012 15:15 GMT Gene Cash
  
  Re: Toolbars? We don't need no stinkin' toolbars!
  
  Oracle tries to install a toolbar when you install Java. Did the Google lawsuit leave them that destitute?
  
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2. Monday 11th June 2012 18:53 GMT jon 72
  
  Re: Toolbars? We don't need no stinkin' toolbars!
  
  Sadly a lot of the younger users still do install toolbars such as the likes of Meebo out of that human need to belong to a herd or aquire the percieved advantage of a particular feature much like the uber paranoid who cling to the belief that Adblock + Noscript will stop an advertising provider tracking them across domains.
  
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3. Monday 11th June 2012 18:54 GMT PaulR79
  
  Re: Toolbars? We don't need no stinkin' toolbars!
  
  It isn't a toolbar you install, it's one of those "oh hey you're on our site, here's a toolbar to help you get spammed with ads!" toolbars. The clearest way to see it, should you wish to, is to go to either justin.tv or twitch.tv where it's at the bottom of the screen. A combination of NoScript and Adblock Plus has always kept it at bay.
  
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Thursday 14th June 2012 09:40 GMT Anonymous Coward

Toolbars are malware, period!

Google has done us a favour, one less toolbar is great news.

Just try getting toolbars like the Babylon toolbar out of Firebox (it requires lots of file/registry cleanup & profile destruction!); if you still tell me they are OK, I will know you are not worth reading or listening too.

I have a declining opinion of any developer/supplier of software who bundle any form of other search, gadget or application tie-in; it has become a plague, and we must now be quite alert for all application installs!

The advertising industry and copy cats need to wakeup and are realise that their over egging has caused a growing number of people to become allergic to their propaganda, and that these people now aggressively filter it out or limit exposure to mediums where this is hard to do!

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