Windstream Quickly Fixes Google Toolbar Hijack > Maybe it was a mistake

said by ISurfTooMuch:

Maybe this really was a mistake.

Hear me out on this. I'm not saying the whole thing was a mistake; merely the part where the user didn't get back a Google results page. I mean, Windstream had to know that people would notice something like this and pitch a fit. So what if the actual goal wasn't to display a custom search results page but to transparently capture search queries while returning the Google page. That's a great way to profile your users to see what they're interested in when they run a search and which links they click in the results. Then overlay the banner ads in the sites users visit with ads from your own ad server. And if you want to think in more traditional terms, you can sell subscriber data that includes all sorts of interesting information that companies will pay good money for.

Where this all may have gone wrong was that the users received this custom search results page instead of the Google page they were expecting.

And even if I'm wrong on the details, Windstream's silence speaks volumes. I'd be willing to bet cold hard cash that there have been multiple meetings today to discuss how to spin their way out of this one, and everyone has been told to keep their damn mouths shut until a story can be concocted.