The United Kingdom’s competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has launched a public consultation on a package of measures aimed at improving how Google’s search services operate in the UK. This follows the CMA’s decision last October to designate Google as having strategic market status in search services, meaning that Google’s dominance in online search has been formally recognised and targeted under the UK’s digital markets competition regime.
Google Search is used for more than 90 per cent of general search queries in the UK, and thousands of businesses rely on it for visibility and sales. The proposed measures are designed to ensure that competition works better for people, firms and content creators, and that users and businesses have greater choice and control over how they interact with search services.
One key focus is improving rights and transparency for content publishers. Under the proposals, publishers including news and other content producers would be given clearer options over how their material is used in Google’s AI Overviews, the automated summaries that appear at the top of search results and can reduce traffic to original content. The CMA wants publishers to have the ability to opt out of having their content used in AI features or for AI training outside of Google Search, and for Google to take practical steps to ensure proper attribution where content is used
Another proposed change is to introduce fair ranking requirements, with Google required to demonstrate that its approach to ranking search results and integrating AI features is transparent and non-discriminatory for businesses, and that there is an effective process for raising and addressing issues.
The CMA is also consulting on measures to make it easier for users to switch search services and to improve data portability. These include making default choice screens a legal requirement on Android devices and introducing choice screens in the Chrome browser, aimed at helping people to choose alternative search providers.
The consultation is open until 25 February 2026, after which the CMA will consider responses before deciding on final conduct requirements.