I tend not to cover national legislation stories, but this week's opener is a bit of a milestone. It will be of direct relevance to many and sets a fascinating legal precedent that everyone will want to track. In a landmark move, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed the Publisher Conduct Requirement (CR), specifically aimed at Google and its use of AI summaries.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
Rather than starting with the press release, let me begin by quoting in full from the relevant page on the UK government site, where you can find a set of detailed PDFs for download on each of the following areas that together make up the CR.
The publisher CR requires Google to:
- Provide publishers with effective controls over the use of their search content in generative AI.
- Publish clear, comprehensible, and user-friendly information explaining how publishers' search content is used by Google in its generative AI.
- Provide publishers with clear and detailed metrics on user engagement with their search content in search generative AI features.
- Take reasonable steps to ensure that search content is attributed clearly and accurately in general search, and that end users have a clear means to access that search content.
- Publish clear, comprehensible, and user-friendly information explaining its approach to attribution.
What This Means in Practice
To be clear, the CR has just been imposed. We do not yet know how Google is going to implement it (of course, as soon as we do I'll be reporting on the exact steps you need to take to have the control you want to exercise over your content). But the purpose of the measures intended to be implemented is clear from the press release mentioned at the start: “it is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used.”
The proof will be in how that translates to practice, how easy it is to avail oneself of these powers, and whether there are any hidden exclusions that prevent us as indie authors from benefiting from them.
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