With no inside knowledge of this team or feature, this appears to be almost the exact same feature MS shipped in the IE6 betas over 20 years ago, though without the ability for 3p to integrate with it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_tag_(Microsoft)

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2167301/what-is-the-purp...

https://alistapart.com/article/smarttags/

Response was extremely negative and the feature was removed. The only thing remaining is the opt-out meta tags all over the web.

As squirmish as this makes me, this is exactly the kind of thing that the original architects of the web imagined when they describe the browser as a "user agent" - that the browser doesn't have to show you exactly what the server sent you.

The user's agent is free to transform the data sent by the server in any way, and users will seek out agents that do useful things for them.

As a developer I'm uncomfortable with the idea that some browser or extension might break my site, or that I may break the customization with an update, but the idea here is really powerful. I don't think it's ever caught on much though. I think most extensions that do this kind of thing have pretty solidly failed.

Was initially surprised that Google would have the nerve to do something like this until I realized that there's literally an app just called "Google" that doesn't seem to be a full blown web browser. The described opt out process is shitty, but realistically this seems like exactly the type of thing that someone using the dedicated Google app would appreciate. I do wonder if Google defaults to its own link or the website's link when there's an existing hyperlink in place.

How is this any different than selecting the text and going to “Look Up” that exists natively anywhere in the OS?

I suppose one aspect is that it looks like a link the website creator has made themselves which might therefore be deceptive? Whereas the OS context menu is obviously from the OS.

Ad networks used to inject “search” links all over the web that opened ad popups on hover. If I remember correctly, it was that obnoxious behavior that first spurred me to look for an ad blocker. Full circle!

If it’s like the YouTube comment search links, it’s going to be terrible. Just let me select anything and search for it.

So Google is rewriting what your online banking site is showing on the fly?

I feel like this type of thing is popular on old-fashioned media sites like news aggregators, especially in Japan.

"[...]opting out can take up to 30 days, while the feature is live now."

Typical.

How is this not some sort of copy write infringement? Isn't this what slingbox got shut down over?

Does anyone have a reusable signature for the injected ads so a side can detect the tampering?

Apple should ban them from the platform for harming users.