The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority announced this morning it is ordering Google to give publishers the ability to opt out of their content being used in its AI search tools, without having to opt out of Google Search entirely, which it claims is a world first.
Since Google began introducing AI components into its primary search business, including AI Overviews at the top of search results and an integrated AI Mode, many publishers have reported they’ve seen significant drops in Google traffic. While their content is often used to inform AI overviews and answers to AI queries — and Google does include links back to content — publishers’ own analytics suggest users don’t click through as commonly as they do with regular search.
A key complaint has been that publishers haven’t had an option to opt out of having their content used in these AI products without opting out of Google’s search engine completely, which would starve them of search traffic entirely. Since that’s not a realistic option for many publishers, several have commented in submissions to the CMA that they’re effectively forced to consent to AI scraping.
This morning’s announcement will change that. Publishers in the UK will be specifically and separately able to control whether their content is used for AI model training — including fine-tuning — and grounding, both within and outside of general search. The fine-tuning control is an important one, as several publishers mentioned its importance in their responses to the CMA’s consultation, arguing Google could use fine-tuning as a means of accessing content from publishers which opted out of grounding. This will be possible both for entire domains, and at the page level. Google is specifically barred from penalising via search rankings any publishers who do choose to opt out.
The result of all this isn’t necessarily that a wave of publishers will opt-out of these search features. Rather, by having the option to opt out, they hope to have a stronger bargaining position over access to their content, and they’ll be able to more specifically control what Google can and can’t access within any licensing agreements.
“With features like AI Overviews rapidly reshaping online search, it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used,” said Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive. “At the same time, these measures will help tens of millions of UK search users better understand and trust the information presented to them.”
Publishers wait for impact
The requirement is one of several measures unveiled by the CMA this morning which it says are designed to ensure fair conditions in the search market. The power to order specific conduct requirements was granted by the UK’s digital markets competition regime, which came into force last year, specifically to be used against companies found to have “strategic market status”.
Under the CMA’s ruling, Google will also be required to make sure that publisher content is properly attributed, using clear links, in AI-generated search results. The tech giant has nine months to implement these changes, and will have to submit and publish regular compliance reports to the CMA. Google, in a blog post, said it is beginning to roll out controls for grounding in search results to a subset of website owners in the UK. Following tests, these controls will be released globally. The company hasn’t stated whether the other controls mandated in the UK, covering training and fine-tuning, will also be released globally or not.
But Movement for an Open Web (MOW), an industry advocacy group, argued that these timelines are too slow from a publisher perspective. “This means that a harm that started over three years ago and has been allowed to go un-remedied will continue to be un-remedied for another nine months – and we will not know whether compliance has been effective until late 2027,” said Tim Cowen, co-founder of MOW. “This is not an effective remedy nor, given Google’s history of non-compliance with remedies in other cases, is it likely to be effective in practice.”
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