In October 2025, UK regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), published its final decision to designate Google as having strategic market status (SMS) in the UK in general search and search advertising services. This designation covered Google’s substantial and entrenched market power in general search and search advertising, and whilst Google’s Gemini AI tool was excluded, its other AI-based search features, including the now familiar AI overview, were included.
Designation as an SMS is important, as it allows the CMA to exercise its new powers under the digital markets competition regime, which came into force under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 on 1 January 2025 (The UKs New Digital Markets Competition and Consumers Act | Insights | Squire Patton Boggs). The CMA’s new powers include the ability to impose conduct requirements (CRs) on businesses designated as having SMS.
As a result of its designation and concerns identified during the process proceeding that, the CMA announced last week it has imposed CRs on Google that are designed to provide “world first” effective and proportionate controls. The aim is to provide “publishers” (which expression the CMA uses to cover all parties that make content available on the web) with sufficient control, transparency and trust over Google’s use of their content provided for general search (referred to by the CMA as “search content”) in Google’s generative AI features.
Full details of these CRs are available here, but in summary, there are three key new requirements:
- Choice: a requirement for Google to provide publishers with effective controls which allow them to withhold their search content from use in Google’s generative AI. Such controls are required to cover training (including fine-tuning) and grounding within and outside of general search, at both a directory and page level. This is effectively a new opt-out system, allowing publishers to withhold their web content from use in Google’s AI features and, in particular, its AI overview feature.
- Transparency: a requirement for Google to publish information in a clear, comprehensive and user-friendly way that explains to publishers how their search content is used by Google in its generative AI. Further, Google must provide publishers with clear and detailed metrics on user engagement with their search content in its generative AI features.
- Attribution: a requirement for Google to take reasonable steps to ensure that search content in Google’s generative AI features is effectively attributed and easily accessible so as to allow end users to test its veracity and publishers to sustain their brand value.
Google now has nine months to implement all these changes, although the CMA has said it expects Google to implement important parts of these controls well before then, going on to say that it expects these new requirements will put publishers, such as news organisations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google, as reflected in the CMA’s announcement CMA secures fairer deal for publishers and improves Google search services in UK – GOV.UK.
Compliance will be monitored by the CMA, including through a requirement for Google to submit and publish compliance reports supported by key data and metrics, initially due every six months.
This is an interesting development in light of the announcement by the UK government earlier this year that its wider general consultation on copyright and AI had effectively stalled (UK Government Consultation on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence: The Sound of a Can being Kicked Down the Road? | Global IP & Technology Law Blog) partially because it had appeared to dawn on the government that implementing a country/market wide opt-out or opt-in model for the use of copyright materials for AI training would be unmanageable given that in the UK copyright is not a registered right meaning there is no central or reliable database which can be leveraged off. As such, it is interesting to see the willingness of one of the main UK regulators to exercise fairly recent new powers to implement controls focused on one of the big market players, rather than attempt a wider or more general system of controls that is applicable to everyone.
Google is not the only big tech firm to have come onto the CMA’s radar, it is just one of four tech businesses the CMA has launched SMS investigations into since the new regime came into force. The CMA views CRs as an important tool that allows it to take steps to ensure designated businesses act in a way that improves digital markets and protects competition. We are likely to see further action from the CMA on its digital markets regulation in the coming months.