Please explain why this code was embedded in Instant Message

[GDN01]

I'm not sure I can explain exactly what and how I discovered this, and it could be completely un-important. But it has me puzzled.<br><br>I was chatting with someone in AIM about the current political climate. I also have a blog, and decided to turn part of the chat into a post on my blog. I saved the chat, opened it in a browser window, saved the text and copied it into word to edit identifying info and correct typos before posting it.<br><br>I copied the edited text from word into the new post window in typepad, and then went to the "edit html" window because there was some formatting issues I could not resolve in the compose post window. <br><br>In the html window, there was a lot of coding that seemed unnecessary, so I began taking it out. Then I noticed that when I had typed the names of some cities and countries, there were tags that had been added:<br><br>{st1:country-region w:st="on">{p>Iran{/p>{/st1:country-region><br><br>{st1:city w:st="on">{st1: place w:st="on">{p>London{/p>{/st1: place>{/st1:city><br><br>I used "{" to replace the opening tag, so it would be viewable in this window, and placed a space between ":" and "p" in the word place, to prevent it from becoming an emoticon.<br><br>This and similar coding was placed around the words Boston, Iraq, Syria. But - when I typed the word "Nicaraugua" - no similar tags were added. And - these tags did not change the appearance of the words - they were not font or style or size, color, necessary. <br><br>My question is - who added the tags, and why, either in a chat application or a word application, would the names of certain countries and cities create the addition of tags - what is "w:st=on"? <br><br>With my tinfoil hat firmly in place, I immediately thought this is how the govt. is choosing which internet transactions to monitor.<br><br>I have saved the transcripts and the html code that was created - either in AIM or word. But, if possible, can others try to duplicate this task, and see if you get the same code.<br><br>And, if you are a techie - can you explain what this means? <p></p><i></i>

[DrDebugDU]

It's data qualification. There are some more systems with automatic data qualification. The reason why Nicaragua doesn't turn up is because you've misspelt it.<br><br>There's no reason to be paranoid just yet. It's probably a stupid scheme to put some AOL(TM) hyperlinks to the words in the future so it'll get directed to a page with their information and it can be used for targeted advertisements of course, which is probably the main reason for doing it.<br><br>{st1:country-region w:st="on"><br><br>It reads more like st1 = start of a tag w:st probably means word start. Try New York, because that's two words and see whether the basic code changes if you type more than one word. <p></p><i></i>

[GDN01]

so at least I am correct in assuming those tags could be used to track who is chatting about what? <p></p><i></i>

[DrDebugDU]

It could be, but most importantly it could give you advertisement about London when you talk about London and an ad about McDonalds when you talk about Jack McDonalds etc. <p></p><i></i>

[Sepka]

This looks like some new implementation of Microsoft's villainous 'smart tags' system. Like DrDebugDU said, it's a way to make sure you don't miss out on that all-important sponsor content. <br><br>It's entirely possible to monitor who talks about what with AIM or other chatware, but you wouldn't bother adding tags to text if that's what you were up to. <p></p><i></i>