Microsoft has just told me that they are changing the SmartTags feature to
respond to our criticism. Below is the note I just received. I'll reserve
the right to look at the final implementation before I announce that this
feature is totally good, but at least we can go back to discussing
Decentralization technologies.

Is the Stutz "interview" dead?

+++++

I'm a developer for IE, not responsible for smart tags, but I know what's
going on.

Because of the -- and there's no better word for it, we're shocked --
uproar, the following changes are going to be made:
1. smart tags off by default (they were on by default to exercise the code,
get Watson crashes)
2. the user-overrides-authored-meta-tag option removed
3. no recognizers shipping in box. So until you do have a recognizer
installed, when you click on the smart tag button, you get navigated to a
gallery from which you can download desired recognizers.

Will that make you happy? Probably not. But that's the current state of the
feature.

If you choose to mention this prior to the release in the public builds --
2497+ should have the changes -- please don't identify me other than "a
source".