For a company that had the least distracting ads for a very long time, this is definitely a questionable move.

But, all the hullabaloo in the article about Ad links making money for Google v/s the others that don't seems misplaced. After all, the point of a search engine is to find stuff. And if an ad shows an alternative, that is possibly better, you can click on it.

These ad links are definitely not going to download malicious malware onto your devices.

I am more worried about ads on social media platforms with infinite scroll because those ads are more unpredictable in placement.