The popular SitePoint author Matt Mickiewicz has interviewed Jakob Nielsen, the usability evangelist (or usability fetishist, depending upon your perspective), on AJAX (deemed “irrelevant”), contextual text links (described as “disgusting”) and other related web technologies.

The full article can be viewed here, and it’s well worth a read. Nielsen is as provocative and opinionated as ever, but he does make some very valid points.

The results of a survey conducted by Click Forensics suggests that more than 1 in 10 clicks on online ads is fraudulent. The latest figure of 14.1% is an increase on the previous estimated figure of 13.7 percent three months ago.

These figures are certain to alarm online advertisers, who spend countless millions building brands online. Whilst most major search engines are willing to refund those who can verify that bogus click-throughs have occurred, the burden of proof lies with the advertisers.

After months of speculation, Google have finally launched Google Checkout, their eagerly anticipated rival to the ubiquitous PayPal. As the feature tour demonstrates, the objective is to make online shopping as simple and user-friendly as possible: you search, click to buy, and the data stored in your Google account is used for payment and shipping etc. You can then track all your orders and shipping in one place (Google, obviously!).

I’m very wary of Google’s strategy to dominate the web. Granted, most of their services are free, but they can now know what you search for, control your email, know the contents of your calendar, and where and how you spend your money online. This data has great value to their advertisers, and consequently great monetary value to Google, but there are many ways in which they could potentially sell or misuse this data for the forces of evil (and no, I don’t care about their “informal” corporate motto).

PayPal is far from perfect, but they can keep my business for the time being.