UK regulator imposes new requirements on Google, publishers to get more control of their content
London, June 3
,: The UK competition watchdog has imposed new requirements on Google, allowing the publishers to block their content from being used by its search crawler to display on AI summaries, according to a Reuters report.
The country's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had designated the company with strategic market status in a general search last year, allowing the regulator to order specific and targeted regulations for maintaining trust and transparency.
The regulator is of the view that the new requirements imposed on the search engine giant will allow publishers more control over their content and give them a stronger bargaining power.
The AI summaries displayed by Google have been a huge problem for publishers who have seen their click-through rates drop significantly.
Under the new regime, the tech giant will have to properly display attribution stating the source of the content on its AI summaries.
"Google has recently announced changes to its search business and the requirements we've introduced today are designed to respond to what Google is doing now and in the future," the Reuters report quoted CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell as saying.
Google has said that it is testing new changes that allow publishers to decide what content appears on the AI overviews. Those who opt out won't get any traffic from AI overviews, it added.
The News Media Association (NMA),, representing news organisations in Britain, had expressed their concerns around opting out of AI use.
"Publishers need confidence that opting out of AI uses will not translate into reduced prominence in general search through knock-on effects," it said in a statement published on the CMA's website on Wednesday.
Google came up with new search controls that sought to give news website/publishers more control over their content in a bid to allay concerns expressed by the UK competition watchdog.
The CMS had proposed in January measures to curb the use of generative AI for showcasing content by publishers without their consent.
Google accounts for over 90 per cent of search queries in Britain, and its search crawler uses content to populate the AI overviews and train its AI model along with the Gemini AI assistant.
— ANI
Reader Comments
As someone who works in digital media, I can tell you this is a huge issue. Our click-through rates have dropped by almost 40% since Google started showing AI summaries. But I'm skeptical about the 'opt out' option - if publishers opt out, their search rankings might suffer. Classic Google move 🙄
This is exactly what we need in India. Google has way too much power over what people see online. The CMA's approach of designating them as 'strategic market status' is smart - gives regulators actual teeth to enforce changes. Our CCI should study this model closely.
As a Brit living in India, I find this fascinating. The UK is actually doing something about big tech dominance while many other countries just complain. But let's be honest - Google will find a way to make publishers pay for the privilege of not being scraped. It's their modus operandi.
Good move by UK regulator. But I worry about the small publishers - they can't afford to opt out of AI summaries because they need any traffic they can get. The big players might benefit, but the independent news sites? They're caught between a rock and a hard place. 😕
Everyone's cheering this, but I'm cautiously pessimistic. Google has deep pockets and better lawyers. The CMA is playing whack-a-mole - by the time they regulate one thing, Google has already moved on to the next. Remember when they promised 'do no evil'? 😅
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