[malloreon]

Does this then allow you to click on the ads at right without the advertisers paying for the click?

If so, advertisers will be pleased, Google will be pissed.

[sorbits]

A disadvantage for the advertiser is that Google sees their ad as ineffective (no-one clicks it) and may discontinue it (at least at one point did they drop ineffective ads) — of course this ineffectiveness would apply equally to all ads (assuming everyone was using this plug-in).

[jasonlbaptiste]

Speaking in magic unicorn fantasy land terms:

If this were true and Microsoft made that a default feature on IE, what would happen? Assume that Google does not find a way around the issue (like I said, magic unicorn fantast land scenario).

[rlpb]

> If this were true and Microsoft made that a default feature on IE, what would happen?

A lawsuit? Microsoft would be altering Google pages without consent from Google and presumably without the consent of the user.

It's not too different from this: what if IE changed Google search results themselves?

[srram]

umm.. yes. You are right. But this is not too different from adblock, which gets rid of the entire frame. I assume google is not too fond of that either

[gojomo]

On the other hand, if X% of all surfers make such uncharged clicks, then advertisers will be willing to bid about X% more per click that is charged. So it may not make that big of a difference, in the end, to the monies flowing through Google.