Comment by xg15

It's a good idea, but that complicated list of styling interactions/restrictions seems honestly ridiculous.

If the goal is to let users easily identity this element as "browser-provided", then having the element "stick out" and be distinct from the page style would sort of be the point - so I don't see why styling fonts or colors should be possible at all.

If this is not the goal, then why restrict styling at all?

In any case, I don't see how users could be educated to rules like "If the letter spacing is between 0 and 0.5 em, it's genuine, otherwise it's fake" or "the font can be normal or italic, but not bold or underlined" to distinguish genuine from fake permission elements.

I get that permitting full styling would allow all kinds of dirty tricks with overlays, strategic invisibility etc, that have to be defended against. But do they really want to play continuous whack-a-mole with all the ways styling could be exploited?