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Google IOS

Google's iOS App Now Injects Links On Third-Party Websites That Go Back To Search (9to5google.com) 34

9to5Google's Ben Schoon reports: Google has introduced a new feature on iOS that injects links on third-party websites that take users back to Google Search. Recently, Google announced new "Page Annotations" within the Google app on iOS. This feature, as Google explains, "extracts interesting entities from the webpage and highlights them in line." Effectively, it creates links on a website that you've opened through Google's browser that the website's owner did not put there. The links, when clicked, then perform a search on Google for that subject and open the search in a pop-up window on top of the third-party website.

The feature, Google says, will offer an opt-out for website owners through a form. It's pointed out by SERoundTable that opting out can take up to 30 days, while the feature is live now.
Further reading: US Says Google Is an Ad Tech Monopolist, in Closing Arguments
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Google's iOS App Now Injects Links On Third-Party Websites That Go Back To Search

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  • Gotta love it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @07:37PM (#64972255)

    The feature, Google says, will offer an opt-out for website owners through a form. It's pointed out by SERoundTable that opting out can take up to 30 days, while the feature is live now.

    Must be nice to tell a website owner, "We're going to deface your site with our garbage and you have to opt out of it." Perhaps someone should do the same to Google's HQ and see how they react.

    • Google already burdens web site owners with the tasks of putting Google's Analytics and ad javascript into their sites and spending untold hours analyzing all the data that Google has extracted from their web site. Now, Google is effectively asserting ownership over the same sites, the entire internet practically. It is desperation, but it is also hubris: who's gonna stop us?
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        "Google already burdens web site owners with the tasks of putting Google's Analytics and ad javascript into their sites..."

        How do they do that? Under penalty of prison?

        "Now, Google is effectively asserting ownership over the same sites, the entire internet practically."

        If you're an iOS user and choose to use Google's browser. Any browser "asserts ownership over...the entire internet..." by your definition.

        "who's gonna stop us?"

        Every user who elects not to use their software. Any site owner who elects not

        • Re: Gotta love it (Score:4, Insightful)

          by nategasser ( 224001 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @09:45PM (#64972545)

          Whining about Analytics is pointless since you're obviously getting a free service in exchange for your data.

          And sure, you can use any browser app you want.

          But this move is different in that, if you run a website and use zero Google products at all, someone else using a Google product is going to see your website in a way you didn't intend. And, as a person of good conscience who doesn't use Google products, you have no way of knowing what links they're adding to your site.

          Yes, any browser software could do this, and in fact many plugins already do. But this is the first time a major browser vendor has hijacked pages, by default, without requiring opt-in.

          • Re: Gotta love it (Score:5, Insightful)

            by serafean ( 4896143 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @06:23AM (#64973051)

            > Yes, any browser software could do this, and in fact many plugins already do. But this is the first time a major browser vendor has hijacked pages, by default, without requiring opt-in.

            This is indeed the important part. Any end user software can do this, and should be able to do this. Google doing this without the end-user's consent, and delegating that choice to the website operator is the dick move.

            We're losing end-user computing, I'm honestly at a loss as to what to do..

  • Except for the occasional photo search. I'll have to resort to the web page even for that, now.
    • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      Google photo search is the very first app that everyone should know not to use! The first proof Google was evil.

    • Google may still be tops for most other searching (though every year the results seem to be a bit muddier), but for a while it's seemed to me like for whatever reason, Bing actually has a better photo search. Give it a try sometime and see what you think.

      Even if it were not better I'd probably still use it just to not use Google for something. I dislike I have to use Google for all coding related Googling still.

      • I generally end up using Yandex to search for images. I wouldn't rate it as good, but it is at least not complete garbage.

  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @07:54PM (#64972303)

    How could we live without such a feature for so long?

  • A form is ridiculous.

  • It's easy enough for an app hosting a web page, to be notified whenever someone clicks a link. The app could then forward this link wherever it wants, without "injecting" anything into the page or altering it in any way. I don't get when they think they need to do this. Maybe they're relying on junior developers for this project?

  • by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @09:43PM (#64972541)

    It sounds to me as if Google is creating a "derived work" by taking your copyrighted webpage and using it as the basis of a new webpage (with all those added links) that it then publishes to the user. I'd love some slick lawyer to test this in court -- imagine the damages they could win if this holds water.

    Remember when frames first became a thing in browsers -- it was considered a breach of copyright to frame another webpage within your own pages because even though the publisher of that page still controlled its content, the site doing the framing was creating a "derived work" by including it in their own page.

    Seems like that would be a reasonable precedent in this case.

  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @10:27PM (#64972611) Homepage

    How could disabling a browser feature take time? This has to be the most egregious thing I have ever seen Google do. And, isn't Google, right now, defending itself against charges that they are a monopoly? And they pull a stunt like this?

  • by GrahamJ ( 241784 ) on Monday November 25, 2024 @10:52PM (#64972645)

    You should really stop thatl

  • The feature, Google says, will offer an opt-out for website owners through a form.

    Luckily, there's an even simpler opt-out for users: don't use the app.

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @04:25AM (#64972957)

    I think some folks at Google should get some prison time for this...

  • by akw0088 ( 7073305 )
    Thats the worst thing Iâ(TM)ve heard come out of Google to be honest, I can now see why this monopoly case is going about when I didnâ(TM)t before

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