The UK has just imposed legal guardrails against Google’s onslaught of AI search. On Wednesday, Google announced its compliance with UK regulatory requirements. The regulatory requirements say tech giants must offer publishers a way to opt out of aggregation in AI search.
To opt out, publishers will be able to use a new toggle in Google’s Search Console, a free service that allows website owners to manage their web presence in Google’s search results.
If you opt out, your publisher’s site will no longer appear in Google’s generated AI search features, such as AI Overview, AI Mode, and AI Overview in Discover. (Of course, Google highlighted in the same announcement that AI Overview now has more than 2.5 billion monthly active users and AI Mode has more than 1 billion monthly active users.)
The tech giant said it would first test the opt-out option with some UK publishers before rolling it out globally.
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) called the move a “world first” to give publishers control over how their content is used, noting that it would put publishers, including news organizations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google for the use of their content in AI features.
The CMA first recognized Google as having a “strategic market position” in October last year, laying the foundations for future regulation. In January, it asked Google to give website publishers the option of aggregating their content into AI search functions or using it to train standalone AI models.
In addition to the opt-out toggle, Google will also be required to ensure that publisher content within AI features is properly attributed using clear links. Google suggested it is also compliant, noting that it recently increased the number of direct inline links within AI responses and added website previews to encourage users to click through.
Google says a website’s decision to opt out of its generative AI search feature will not be used as a ranking signal for traditional Google search.
But the company plans to present new metrics in Search Console, including impression metrics and other information about which pages appear in which countries in AI responses, in hopes of influencing publishers considering opting out. Google says more metrics will be added over time.
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