The competition regulator says it gave UK publishers the power to stop Google's AI using their content, as of June 2026. Its own compliance papers give Google until March 2027 to actually build the tool.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
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In short. On 23 September 2026 the Competition and Markets Authority published strengthened proposals for a User Choice Conduct Requirement on Google, and used its "Notes to editors" to summarise the conduct requirements already imposed on Google under the UK's Digital Markets Competition Regime: "The CMA imposed publisher controls on 3 June and then fair ranking and data portability requirements on 17 June" [[1]]. The CMA's own measure page calls the Publisher Conduct Requirement "the first CR the CMA has imposed," giving publishers the right to withhold their content from Google's generative AI features [[2]][[3]]. Its own one-page summary of that same requirement, published 3 August 2026, sets Google's actual deadline: "Google has until 3 December 2026 to comply with the CR, with an additional 3 months to develop and roll-out a page level control" [[3]]. As of today, neither deadline has passed. Separately, the User Choice Conduct Requirement being re-consulted on since 23 September was part of the same package first opened for consultation at 10am on 28 January 2026 [[4]]; the other three measures in that package were imposed by 17 June, and User Choice alone remains undecided, now delayed a second time by what the CMA's own chief executive calls the "rapid" rise of AI assistants since the original proposal [[1]]. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
The Competition and Markets Authority designated Google as holding strategic market status in general search and search advertising services in October 2025 [[5]], the gateway power under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 that lets the CMA impose bespoke "conduct requirements" on the UK's largest technology firms. The first conduct requirement it proposed and imposed was the Publisher Conduct Requirement, which the CMA's own measure page describes in full: Google must "provide publishers with effective controls over the use of their search content in generative AI," publish clear information on how that content is used, and give publishers detailed engagement metrics [[2]]. The requirement came into force on 3 June 2026 [[2]]. Three months later, the CMA's 23 September press release summarised the state of play for readers of its latest announcement, and the summary is where this piece starts.
"Imposed" is not "delivered"
The press release's own background section reads: "In early 2026, the CMA set out a package of conduct requirements for consultation, which included user choice, data portability, fair ranking and a world first requirement giving publishers the control to opt out of AI features in Google's search results. The CMA imposed publisher controls on 3 June and then fair ranking and data portability requirements on 17 June" [[1]]. Read on its own, that sentence reads as a list of things already delivered: Google was designated, then publisher controls arrived in June, then fair ranking and data portability arrived later in June.
The CMA's own compliance paperwork for the Publisher Conduct Requirement tells a different story about timing. Its one-page summary, published two months after the requirement was imposed, states plainly: "Google has until 3 December 2026 to comply with the CR, with an additional 3 months to develop and roll-out a page level control" [[3]]. That second deadline falls on or around 3 March 2027. The same summary adds: "We expect Google to start making changes to comply with the CR sooner than this - Google is already rolling out parts of the control and elements of enhanced transparency" [[3]], which is the CMA's own way of confirming that, as of its own 3 August 2026 update, full compliance had not happened yet. "Imposed" describes a legal obligation taking effect on 3 June. It does not describe a working tool in a publisher's hands, and the CMA's own paperwork gives Google until nine months after imposition to finish building the hardest part of it.
A "world first" that still has two deadlines ahead of it
The same measure page calls the underlying requirement significant in scope: "The Publisher CR is the first CR the CMA has imposed. Publishers ... will now be able to prevent their content being used to power Google's AI search features in the UK" [[3]]. That is the requirement working as designed, eventually. Until 3 December 2026, Google's deadline to comply with the requirement generally has not arrived. Until roughly 3 March 2027, its deadline to roll out the page-level version of the control, the finer-grained option the CMA's own document says the rule requires "at directory and page level" [[3]], has not arrived either. A publisher reading the CMA's 23 September announcement that controls were "imposed on 3 June" has no way to tell, from that sentence alone, that the regulator's own compliance timetable puts full delivery as late as next spring.
The other three quarters of January's package, and the one still stuck
The User Choice Conduct Requirement, the measure the 23 September press release was actually about, has a slower history than the one its own background section glosses over. All four measures, user choice, data portability, fair ranking and the publisher control, were proposed together: the original consultation on Google's proposed conduct requirements opened at 10am on 28 January 2026 and closed at 5pm on 25 February 2026 [[4]]. Three of the four, publisher, fair ranking and data portability, were imposed by 17 June 2026, within five months of that consultation closing. User Choice was not imposed alongside them. Instead, the CMA opened a second, "strengthened" consultation on User Choice on 23 September 2026, which closed on 9 October 2026 without a decision [[1]][[6]].
The CMA's own chief executive, Sarah Cardell, gave the reason in the same press release: "We've listened carefully to feedback and are responding quickly to the rise of AI assistants, which people are increasingly using as their search service, but aren't included on Google's choice screens. This is about future-proofing the options available to people in the UK so they can choose the search service they want as these come to market" [[1]]. That is a candid admission that the original January proposal, written before ChatGPT and Perplexity became common search alternatives, needed reworking once newer AI products moved faster than the CMA's own rulemaking. The press release states the CMA "expects to make" its final decision on User Choice "by the end of the year" [[1]], which would put the measure at roughly eleven months from its first consultation to a decision, against five months for its three siblings from the same package.
Credit where due
Neither admission here is hidden. The CMA's own 3 August 2026 summary states its compliance deadlines in plain, dated language rather than leaving a reader to infer them from a footnote, and volunteers that Google has not yet finished the work: "Google is already rolling out parts of the control," not all of it [[3]]. Sarah Cardell's quoted explanation for the User Choice delay names the specific cause, the rise of AI assistants, rather than describing it vaguely as "ongoing review." The CMA also keeps the record open to outside scrutiny: the 23 September release invites comments on Google's actual changes through a named CMA contact mailbox or via a trade association [[3]], and the renewed User Choice consultation ran to a published, fixed deadline rather than an open-ended one [[6]].
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "The CMA imposed publisher controls on 3 June and then fair ranking and data portability requirements on 17 June" [[1]] | The CMA's own Publisher CR summary sets Google's compliance deadline at 3 December 2026, with a further three months, to around 3 March 2027, for the page-level control, and confirms Google is still "rolling out parts of the control" [[3]] | "Imposed" describes a legal obligation taking effect 3 June; full delivery of the control it describes is not due for up to nine months after that, and has not happened yet |
| The January 2026 package covered "user choice, data portability, fair ranking and a world first requirement" together, as one proposal [[1]] | Publisher, fair ranking and data portability were imposed within five months of the package's consultation closing; User Choice alone was re-consulted from 23 September to 9 October 2026 and remains undecided, blamed on the "rapid" rise of AI assistants [[1]][[4]][[6]] | Three quarters of the January package moved on schedule; the fourth is running roughly twice as long, by the regulator's own account because its own proposal was overtaken by events before it was decided |
Verdict
Four stars, from two documented mistakes, neither of them concealed. The CMA's own words distinguish a rule taking legal effect from a tool actually existing, and its own compliance paperwork shows the gap between those two things runs to as long as nine months on its flagship Publisher Conduct Requirement. Its own words also show that one quarter of its first conduct-requirement package has taken roughly twice as long as the other three, because the market it was regulating moved faster than its first draft. A UK publisher reading "imposed on 3 June" and a UK Android user reading "proposals to help people choose their search provider" are each entitled to ask the regulator's own documents, not its press release, what date that actually arrives.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: the CMA's 23 September 2026 press release describes publisher controls as "imposed on 3 June" in a way that reads as delivered, while the CMA's own Publisher Conduct Requirement summary (3 August 2026) sets Google's compliance deadline at 3 December 2026, with a further three months for the page-level control, and confirms the control was still being rolled out as of that update; and the User Choice Conduct Requirement, proposed in the same January 2026 package as the publisher, fair ranking and data portability requirements that were all imposed within five months, remains undecided eight months after its first consultation opened, with the CMA's own chief executive attributing the delay to the rise of AI assistants since the original proposal. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding that the Publisher or User Choice Conduct Requirements are poorly designed, or that the CMA has done anything improper in setting its compliance timetable; the CMA's own documents state both deadlines and the reason for the User Choice delay in plain language. The finding is narrower: a press release's framing of what has already been delivered does not match the regulator's own compliance deadlines, and one of four conduct requirements proposed together has taken roughly twice as long as its siblings. Checked directly against the CMA's 23 September 2026 press release, its Google search publisher conduct requirement measure page and 3 August 2026 compliance summary, its original and strengthened User Choice consultation pages, and the Google search strategic market status case page (all fetched 17 October 2026).
Sources
- CMA strengthens proposals allowing people choice over their search service, Competition and Markets Authority, 23 September 2026
- Google search: publisher conduct requirement, Competition and Markets Authority, measure page
- Publisher conduct requirement summary, Competition and Markets Authority, 3 August 2026
- Google's General Search services: proposed conduct requirements, Competition and Markets Authority, consultation, opened 28 January 2026
- Google's general search and search advertising services, Competition and Markets Authority, case page
- Google's General Search services: proposed User Choice conduct requirement, Competition and Markets Authority, consultation, opened 23 September 2026