UK orders Google to let publishers opt out of AI Overviews

TL;DR:

  • The Competition and Markets Authority has imposed a “world-first” conduct requirement letting UK publishers block their content from Google’s AI Overviews without dropping out of ordinary search.
  • Google must also attribute publisher content with clear links and let sites opt out of having their work used to train models.
  • The CMA calls it a first step; publishers welcome the leverage but warn enforcement detail is thin.

For the first time, online publishers can stop their journalism feeding Google’s AI-generated search summaries in the UK while keeping their place in conventional results. The CMA used its new digital markets powers — the same regime under which it designated Google with “strategic market status” — to impose the rule, which Google has nine months to implement and began testing on a subset of UK sites on Wednesday.

Why publishers pushed for this

The grievance is concrete: AI Overviews, produced by Google’s Gemini model, answer queries by summarising publisher material at the top of the page, and many readers never click through. Until now, allowing content into normal search defaulted it into Overviews too, leaving publishers no way out without sacrificing the search traffic that underpins online journalism. The CMA’s chief executive, Sarah Cardell, framed the change as restoring “bargaining power” over how content is used.

The move lands amid an intensifying fight over who pays for the journalism that trains and feeds AI. The New York Times chair AG Sulzberger this week said the paper had already spent $20m (£15m) on lawsuits against OpenAI and Perplexity — echoing the copyright action CNN has brought against Perplexity. UK publishers including the BBC, Guardian, FT, Telegraph and Sky are coordinating through SPUR, a “Nato for news” coalition that added 20 members this week to negotiate common terms.

Looking forward

Lawyers caution the framework sets a baseline, not a payment mechanism. Tim Cowen, who complained to the CMA over Overviews last year, warned Google could “slow-roll” compliance by exploiting vague reporting obligations. The bigger prize is precedent: Google says it will roll the controls out globally, meaning a UK regulator may have just reset the terms on which AI summarises the open web. Whether that translates into actual revenue for publishers — rather than just an opt-out button — is the question the next few months will answer.

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