UK Competition and Markets Authority · 2026-06-03 · major
UK CMA Hits Google With World-First Conduct Requirement on AI Search — Publishers Get an Opt-Out From AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Fine-Tuning, Plus Mandatory Attribution and Six-Month Compliance Reports, All in Nine Months
UK CMA imposes a new conduct requirement on Google Search under the digital markets regime: publishers can opt out of AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI fine-tuning without losing search rankings. Google has nine months to ship.
The first regulator on Earth to force a frontier AI Search opt-out — UK publishers can now refuse AI Overviews, AI Mode, and fine-tuning without a ranking penalty.
Key specs
| Implementation deadline | 9 months |
|---|---|
| Compliance reports | Every 6 months for year 1 |
| Jurisdiction | United Kingdom |
What is it?
The Competition and Markets Authority finalized a Conduct Requirement on Google Search services under the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers regime. It is the CMA's first conduct requirement against Google's Strategic Market Status designation and the first such order in the world targeting generative-AI search features specifically.
How does it work?
Within nine months, Google must add controls in Search Console letting UK publishers opt out of having their content used in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and AI Overviews in Discover — and separately opt out of having content used for AI model fine-tuning. Google is barred from punishing opt-outs in its regular search ranking. Publishers who do appear in AI features must get proper attribution with clear links. Google will submit and publish compliance reports every six months for the first year and may face further measures if the CMA finds the rollout inadequate. Initial testing happens with a subset of UK publishers before global rollout.
Why does it matter?
Until today, publishers had a binary choice: opt out of Google Search entirely or accept AI Overviews scraping. The UK is the first jurisdiction to break that. It also creates an EU template — the CMA explicitly framed this as setting a precedent, and the EU AI Act and DMA enforcement regimes have similar tools waiting. For news organizations, the fine-tuning opt-out has long-tail value: even sites that allow AI Overviews can now refuse training-corpus use without losing search traffic, opening a new front in publisher–lab content licensing talks.
Who is it for?
UK publishers, news organizations, Google policy teams, AI lab licensing teams, antitrust regulators in the EU and US.
Try it
Read the CMA Conduct Requirement