Credit: Google
Can publishers say no to AI using their work without disappearing from Google? In our previous article on Getty Images v Stability AI, we explored the limits of copyright law in protecting creative work. Today’s piece turns to competition law, examining how the CMA’s rules for Google AI Overviews could give publishers more control over how their content is used. - Amy Rompotis.
The case of Getty Images v Stability AI [2025] has shown the challenges facing creators trying to use copyright to protect their works from being incorporated into AI systems. The case has taught creators that location of training and what the model has retained can be issues in any copyright disputes. This fear is now present within online publishing. Authors, news outlets, independent sites and creators are all worried about Google AI Overviews which use Gemini models.
How Google AI Overviews affect website traffic
When publishers post content, search engines index it, and users can then click on a link to visit the site, generating revenue through adverts, subscriptions or other forms of engagement. AI Overviews threaten this important loop. By drawing on multiple sources, prioritising information and providing a condensed, accessible answer to a search, they can help users get the information they need quickly, without ever clicking on a website.
But, as a result, websites can lose clicks, shops can lose visitors, and authors can lose readers: Google gets to draw on their content while businesses risk losing traffic. An October 2025 analysis by Studio 36 Digital of 35 high-volume UK keywords, representing 87.6 million monthly searches, estimated that over 54% of searches in its sample resulted in zero clicks to external websites. That figure illustrates the wider problem of zero-click searches; it does not establish that AI Overviews alone caused it.
Why publishers struggled to opt out of AI Overviews
Publishers were caught in a sort of trap.
The context: Google accounts for more than 90% of general search queries in the UK. People rely on it to access articles, news, photos, entertainment, online shops and more. To survive without being accessible via Google is extremely difficult, giving it considerable power over publishers’ access to search traffic.
The AI issue: Naturally, websites wanted to block Google’s AI from taking their content. Google uses the Googlebot crawler to index websites for traditional search results, but it also uses this content for AI Overviews. Historically, publishers lacked a straightforward, separate opt-out that preserved their traditional search presentation. Google’s existing preview controls could limit use in AI features, but could also restrict snippets in ordinary search results; blocking Googlebot entirely would undermine search visibility.
What do you do when refusing one use risks damaging the other? Because Google holds such a large share of the UK search market, disappearing from results would be commercially difficult. Publishers faced pressure to allow Google’s AI to use their content to preserve visibility.
The same worries expressed in Getty Images exist here, but amplified. Creators are not only watching their work be used without payment. They also face pressure to supply it as a condition of being found online at all.
Why copyright law does not resolve the whole problem
Copyright cannot necessarily resolve this problem on its own. Copyright claims turn on whether protected expression has been reproduced; summarising facts does not, by itself, establish infringement. Litigation of this kind is expensive and fact-heavy, as demonstrated in Getty itself, turning on territorial issues about training locations and technical questions about model weights and retained data.
Even a successful copyright claim would not necessarily address why publishers struggle to say ‘no’ at the outset.
How UK competition law and strategic market status apply
This is where competition law steps in. Whether a company with entrenched market power can exploit its position to impose terms for AI use is arguably a more immediate question for publishers, beyond whether work is being copied.
Competition law protects competition, including by tackling anti-competitive agreements and abuses of a dominant position. A company’s size or dominance is not itself unlawful; the concern is how it uses that position, including conduct that can stifle innovation, limit consumer choice or exclude rivals. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the UK’s principal competition regulator, investigating anti-competitive practices and major mergers.
Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the CMA can designate a firm as having strategic market status (SMS) in a digital activity if it has substantial and entrenched market power and a position of strategic significance, subject to the Act’s other conditions. These include a UK connection and turnover thresholds. Section 2 sets out the designation framework. Once designated, a firm can be made subject to conduct requirements pursuing fair dealing, open choices, or trust and transparency.
What the CMA rules mean for publisher choice
Google was one of the CMA’s targets here. Opening its investigation in January 2025, the CMA designated Google with SMS in general search services in October that year. This unlocked a new regulatory regime. Rather than relying solely on retrospective enforcement against anti-competitive conduct, the SMS regime lets the CMA set rules proactively.
On 3 June 2026, the CMA imposed its publisher conduct requirement on Google. It requires effective controls over the use of publishers’ search content in generative AI. The formal notice also prohibits retaliation, such as downranking publishers in traditional search for exercising those controls. Most provisions come into force six months after the notice, with page-level grounding controls following after nine months.
In doing so, the CMA has sidestepped the copyright questions that complicated Getty. It did not need to decide whether AI Overviews infringed anyone’s copyright to introduce these requirements. It could instead address the relationship between Google’s search power and publishers’ ability to control AI use of their content.
Getty exposed the difficulties of protecting creative content through copyright litigation, while Google’s AI Overviews demonstrate how those concerns can be compounded by market power. The new requirements are intended to give publishers a meaningful choice over how their work is used, without having to sacrifice their visibility in traditional search.
Amy Rompotis is a contributing writer at Best Practice, exploring how AI is reshaping the law.
