DMoz abstracts have been around for a while; they only show up in some cases. A site needs to have a DMoz listing, and the search query needs to be kind of generic (usually the site name or similar).

It is possible for site owners to control this behavior using the Google Webmaster Tools. This requires a (free) account, and to identify yourself as the site owner using one of several methods (e.g. drop a file having a name Google supplies in your site root directory). Once set up, you can specify that Google should not use DMoz. Of course there are many other great bits of information about how Google sees your site.

DMoz is a strange beast. One might wonder why the heck it’s still around, as it doesn’t really seem to provide anything useful. Given that it is often the view of a single person, it seems almost anti-Google in its world view.

Tom