Overview
- The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority issued legally binding conduct requirements on Wednesday that force Google to give publishers effective controls to stop their content being used in AI Overviews, AI Mode and related generative search features.
- Google said it has begun testing a new Search Console opt-out toggle and AI visibility reports with a subset of U.K. sites that will stop those pages from receiving impressions or traffic from generative AI features while leaving ordinary Search rankings unchanged.
- The initial Search Console reports surface impressions, which pages appear in AI responses and the countries where they show but do not yet provide click data or query‑level mappings that publishers and SEO teams say are needed to measure real user behaviour.
- The CMA gave Google nine months to implement the required changes, will require six‑monthly compliance reports and can impose fines under the Digital Markets rules if Google fails to meet the timetable.
- Regulators and publishers say the move responds to steep drops in referral traffic and rising zero‑click searches and could prompt similar rules elsewhere as Google plans a global rollout of controls after U.K. testing.