The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has ordered Google to give publishers more control over how their content appears in search results. The antitrust regulator has imposed new conduct requirements on Google's search services following a decision to designate the company as holding strategic market status.
Under these requirements, Alphabet Inc. must provide tools that allow website publishers to opt out of generative AI search features, including the AI Overviews panel. These tools will prevent publisher content from being used to power AI features in search and stop it from being used to train Google's AI models.
The opt-out option will first be tested in the UK before being rolled out globally. According to the regulator, this move aims to give publishers more control over their content and put them in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google.