It's about freedom of speech.

Or copyright, privacy, wasting Internet bandwidth.

Or maybe not. Let me embroil you in a controversy of which you may be unaware. An intriguing controversy because it is unique to the Internet and (potentially) challenges some of our deeply rooted ways of looking at the world.

Suppose you wanted to share with the world your opinion of this publication, or any newspaper or magazine, radio or tv show or concert or stage play. You could write a letter to the editor. You could call, write or e-mail everyone you know.

But it would be impossible to always have your comments available to every reader of any print, broadcast, theater or even web entity, even if you created a website for the purpose.

Enter Third Voice, www.thirdvoice.com, a free browser plug-in that lets you post sticky notes on any website, either privately for your own information or for anyone (who has Third Voice installed) to see.

When visiting a site to which one or more public notes are appended, arrows mark sections of text. Click the arrow to read the note. A window on the left side of your browser lists all the notes on a page by subject, so you can select those that interest you.

You can also create groups, private or public, for discussion and collaboration with those you choose to invite or for any other Third Voice users to join. You could, for example, start a private group for discussion of sites related to your business, political, artistic or charitable interests (though not for commercial purposes).

Highlight the text on which you wish to comment, click Post, choose type of note (personal, public, group), then write in the editor window. You can share notes further by clicking to have interesting notes e-mailed to friends.

Does Third Voice point the way to the ultimate in interactive engagement with the web? Or to the ultimate invasion of the privacy and property of site owners?

Some who feel strongly it's the latter have created a site to make their point: www.saynotothirdvoice.com, to which Third Voice users have, naturally, appended their responses. Third Voice apparently isn't concerned, as their site has a link to "sayno."

I installed the new Netscape version and discovered that Third Voice requires cookies to work. OK, cookies can always be deleted later.

I found, as expected, that many notes are trivial, to put it mildly. But scanning through some of the groups listed on Third Voice's site elucidates the possibilities. I enjoyed, for example, posting rebuttals to the vile attacks by Microsoft's pompous www.slate.com columnists on Alan Keyes and Pat Buchanan.

If and when Third Voice (or a similar technology) becomes widespread, web publishers will have to learn to deal with the criticisms of their readers, from which they and their traditional media cousins have been insulated.

It may sound grandiose for a little browser plug-in that, in these pioneer days, propagates more fluff than serious discussion, but Third Voice is pregnant with power.

Can tyrannical governments successfully propagandize their serfs when those serfs can use the tyrants' own websites as billboards?

It takes only a little imagination to see that Third Voice carries the seeds of the stuff that history is made of.

A voice for the voiceless.

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