What happens when you look it up in a dictionary rather than as a phrase in Google? Google just catalogues other people's [mis-]uses

In the software industry we use "dependency" to refer to the relationship between two objects. We say "looking for dependents" for relationships to dependent things and "looking for dependencies" for relationships to prerequisite things, so it gets that connotation, but the literal meaning is the relationship itself, not the object. Finding a better word is exactly the point of the question

A "tag" is a snippet of code that allows digital marketing teams to collect data, set cookies or integrate third-party content like social media widgets into a site.

In mainstream press, the word "hacker" is often used to refer to a malicious security cracker. There is a classic definition of the term "hacker", arising from its first documented uses related to information technologies at MIT, that is at odds with the way the term is usually used by journalists. The inheritors of the technical tradition of the word "hacker" as it was used at MIT sometimes take offense at the sloppy use of the term by journalists and others who are influenced by journalistic inaccuracy.

there's no reasonable way to communicate effectively with the less technically minded without acquiescing to the nontechnical misuse of the term "hacker"

terms like "malicious security cracker" are sufficiently evocative and clear that their use actually helps make communication more effective than the common journalistic misuse of "hacker".