UK media websites given power to block Google using their articles in AI search

Key points

• Online publishers and news organisations are now able to block their content from appearing in Google’s AI summaries in UK search results, the British competition watchdog has announced.
• The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the new requirement would “put publishers, like news organisations, in a stronger position to negotiate content deals with Google”.
• Many media organisations have complained that they have seen a drop in click-through traffic to their websites – and therefore their revenue – since Google started placing AI summaries at the top of its search page.
• Many people read these without clicking through to the original journalism.
• Up until now, websites were also unable to opt out of their content being scraped for AI overviews without also withdrawing from traditional Google search.