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The U.K.’s Competition Markets Authority is taking up publishers’ fight against Google’s search grip.
The watchdog said on Tuesday that it wants to set more binding rules around how Google operates search in the U.K. and how publishers’ content is used, including AI Overviews.
That’s a monumental task. And let’s face it, a lot of regulatory scrutiny often lends more toward carrot than stick (with the exception of the DOJ’s ongoing Google antitrust actions, and the European Commission’s major antitrust fines to Google over the years). But the CMA is known as more of a negotiator than a hard-nosed regulator, according to industry experts who deal with them regularly. So what could this really change?
Digiday asked a range of legal, publishing and analyst sources. Here’s what we know:
To regulate Google, the CMA proposed to designate it as a “strategic market status” under the new Digital Markets Competition Regime.
What it means: The CMA would have new powers to impose legally binding conduct requirements on Google, that it deems anti-competitive in search, and that includes AI-generated content services like AI Overviews.
The repercussions: This is more about search than Google’s AI services. That’s a whole other political minefield. There is also the DOJ’s ongoing and extremely high-profile antitrust lawsuit against Google focused on its search and advertising businesses. That may have propelled the CMA into action. “Twenty years too late, they [the CMA] realize how Google has a monopoly over search, because the DOJ has said that, so now they basically can’t ignore it anymore,” said Mattia Fosci, a lawyer and expert on privacy and competition in programmatic advertising and CEO of ad tech coalition Anonymised.
It wants to ensure fair and non-discriminatory ranking of search results and more transparency and control for publishers whose content appears in search results.
What it means: This relates to the algorithm rollercoaster publishers have gotten accustomed to riding, for better or worse, over the years, as Google rolls out its core updates. It also incorporates changes to AI Overviews. The aim is that Google would have to explain to publishers how and why their content appears (or doesn’t) in search results or AI summaries.
The repercussions: This could work on greater search transparency, but is unlikely to work on AI Overviews, due to the competitive urgency Google has with AI. It’s noteworthy that the CMA explicitly excludes Gemini (Google’s AI assistant) from this round of intervention. That’s a point the publisher trade body News Media Association would like more clarity on. “It would be helpful to understand the CMA’s reasoning for the exclusion of Gemini AI Assistant in order to assess whether or not this needs to be revisited,” said an NMA spokesperson.
Google may be content to meet some of the stipulations, in a way that works for it, of course. Others, less so. “The CMA will score some easy wins with this,” said Fosci. The data portability and user choice screens go into the easy bucket. They’re pretty easy fixes. What will be harder, but achievable, is the algorithm transparency, stressed Fosci, who has also been assisting the CMA on the Privacy Sandbox case since 2022. “This might take longer, but I think Google will probably just disclose the brand parameters they use,” he said. (He noted that while this will take a while, the CMA won’t want to be caught out like it was after years of preparation to ensure the Privacy Sandbox didn’t distort competition in the digital advertising market, only to have Google u-turn on third-party cookie deprecation. Therefore, it may try to work faster).
What it means: Publisher trade bodies are relieved that the issue of Google AI Overviews and potentially AI mode, eroding publisher traffic, without any regulatory oversight on how that’s happening, is being addressed. A spokesperson for News Media Association said they are encouraged by the CMA’s intentions to force Google to be more transparent around attribution and choice for publishers in how content, collected for search, is used in Google’s AI services. The intention signals that the CMA will tackle what is a critical issue for publishers, “namely the tech platforms’ dominance and exploitation of publisher content,” added the spokesperson.
The repercussions: While there could well be some opening up on the transparency of its search algorithm, doing so may unleash an inadvertent can of worms. “They [Google] can disclose that to the CMA, but if they make public how the algorithm works, you’re going to have an army of SEO experts trying to game the system, which doesn’t really do much to help publishers,” said Fosci. But the upshot, this section of the CMA’s plan will be more difficult but achievable.
This won’t likely move the needle for publishers on the use of their content in AI Overviews and AI mode as an extension of that. And it doesn’t even tackle the biggest elephant in the room: copyright theft. “That [gaining transparency on AI Overviews and AI Mode] is going to be the hardest nut to crack,” said Fosci. “Google won’t play ball on that because it is clear that this is essential to their business, because AI is disrupting search. They need to be leading on this, or if not leading, then at least on par with their competitors, to retain market share,” he added. “They’re not going to bow to the CMA on this, they don’t care. And they don’t want to set a precedent to the U.K. that can be then replicated by other competition authorities. So I think they’re going to engage with the CMA to then create some precedent that is favorable to them [Google],” said Fosci.
What it means: There are political hurdles. “The UK Labor government’s desperate to increase productivity and kickstart the economy and provide growth, and they seem to be betting on anything AI as being kind of the magic wand that makes the UK labor force more productive. So they definitely don’t want to be seen as hampering innovation,” said Fosci. This will also be (surprise!) slow. The final decision won’t be made until October, and regulations have a tendency to be delayed. Plus, Google will likely flood the CMA with data to “help” it untangle its investigation, and this will take a long time to process. It’s not going to change much in the short term for publishers.
The repercussions: Any actual enforcement isn’t pegged until 2026. The CMS has deliberately broken up its measures into three waves to speed up the first wave, said Jamie MacEwan, senior analyst at media analysis firm Enders. “It just goes to show how slow the regulatory process is compared to tech companies’ ability to iterate and transform their products at speed,” he said. “Google’s new products are already impacting publishers, and it is only likely to go further, so any delay could mean extra months adapting to a difficult operating environment.”
It’s a bit of a tight-rope walk for the CMA. “Finding a middle ground on things like fair ranking, the CMS could upset Google and publishers alike if it isn’t careful,” added MacEwan. “A key tension is between principles-based and outcomes-based regulation.”
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