Google might be forced to hand more control over to publishers — but those publishers are concerned there might be consequences if they exercise it.
In October, Google became the first company to be assigned ‘strategic market status’ by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.
Under the new law, the CMA has the power to impose rules on Google, to ensure that it’s not abusing its market dominance, and at the end of January, the CMA published the proposed conduct requirements that Google would have to abide by. These are:
- Publisher controls: Giving publishers the right to opt-out of having their content scraped by LLMs, and also ensuring that Google properly attributes information sourced from publishers when it is scraped.
- Fair ranking: Making the ranking of Google search results ‘fair and transparent for businesses’.
- Choice screens: Making it mandatory for phones and browsers to offer multiple search services by default.
- Data portability: Making it easier for people and businesses to access and use Google search data.
The CMA’s chief executive, Sarah Cardell, said that these actions were ‘targeted and proportionate’, and that they would unlock ‘greater opportunities for innovation across the UK tech sector and broader economy’.
But while these policies seem sound in principle, publishers are concerned about what may happen if they exercise the control over Google that they offer.
‘Within the regulatory requirement, [Google is] not supposed to downrank a publisher for using the control,’ said the Professional Publishers’ Association’s head of policy and public affairs, Eilidh Wilson. But, she added: ‘There are great concerns that they would be punished anyway, so there’s quite significant hesitation from publishers to actually use the control to opt out of AI features.’
‘Any loophole that could be found by Google to be punitive, there’s a real fear that that could be used from the publishers’ point of view.’
In the early days of search, said Wilson, there was a partnership between search engines and publishers, where both drove business for the other. However, she explained, the rollout of AI products on Google has created ‘much more aggressive problems for publishers’.
However, all the data on how Google’s search and AI products impact publishers is held by Google, which means publishers are unable to prove that any changes have negatively affected them.
Wilson added that while some publishers have existing relationships with AI services, the ‘lack of digital regulation’ means that these deals have been reached in ‘an unfair environment for publishers’ and that even publishers who have these relationships are ‘impacted’ by the lack of regulation around search and AI.
MediaCat contacted Google for a response and was referred to a post on Google’s official blog, The Keyword, which states that the company has offered publishers ‘a range of controls’ for how their content is used ‘for years’.
It adds: ‘Our goal is to protect the helpfulness of search for people who want information quickly, while also giving websites the right tools to manage their content.’
The deadline for feedback on the CMA’s proposals passed on 25 February. According to the authority, a ‘final decision will be taken following consideration of the feedback,’ but no date has yet been given for a decision.
