Proposed Government reforms to tackle Google's web search dominance could address a "fundamental asymmetry" – but aspects need to be clarified and improved, experts have warned.
The reforms are designed to tackle issues about fairness raised by news and web publishers following the introduction of AI-generated responses in searches.
The Competition and Markets Authority are consulting on the changes they want to make to Google's general search and search advertising services, following Google's designation as having Strategic Market Status in October 2025.
This is the first substantive deployment of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024's conduct requirement powers and mark a significant milestone in UK digital markets regulation.
AI-generated response features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and the Gemini AI assistant, mean publishers now face declining referrals and limited visibility over how their content is used by Google's AI services.
In their response experts from the SCiDA Project praise the "comprehensive" approach to help news publishers, and show the aspects of the changes the CMA should clarify, set out in more detail and improve.
The research was carried out by Oles Andriychuk, Anush Ganesh and Pavlína Hubková, from the University of Exeter, Rupprecht Podszun, Kena Zheng and Sarah Hinck, from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and Jasper van den Boom, from Leiden University.
The response draws on the SCiDA team's extensive comparative research analysing digital markets regulation across the EU, UK, and Germany, as well as observations from the CMA's stakeholder roundtables on the proposed conduct requirements held in February 2026.
Professor Andriychuk said: "We broadly support the CMA's approach, but there are areas where clarification or strengthening would enhance effectiveness."
The CMA recommends bringing in "compelled consent" for news publishers who want to restrict their content from Google. The researchers say the opt out model suggested may not be workable. There may need to be a structural separation of the search crawler and AI crawler.
The CMA has set out proposals to make Google rankings fairer. The researchers say there are "definitional ambiguities" regarding the distinction between fair ranking and self-preferencing - artificially boosting placement - and this requires clarification.
The CMA has suggested new "test-drive" functionality so users can choose their own search engine. Researchers welcome this innovation, but raise concerns about the delegation of critical implementation decisions to Google, particularly regarding the number of providers to be displayed on the choice screen.
Dr Ganesh said: "We broadly welcome these proposals as an important first step in addressing the power asymmetry between Google and web publishers. The three-pillar structure of the proposed requirement, addressing choice, transparency, and attribution respectively, provides a coherent framework.
"However the effectiveness of the changes will depend critically on implementation details, particularly the design of opt-out mechanisms to provide publishers sufficient choices and controls over Google's use of their content in generative AI services and features on the one hand, and the metrics provided to publishers for them to enhance transparency on how their content would be used and accordingly make their informed decisions.
"The CMA will know people harbour significant doubts about whether the opt-out model can generate meaningful changes without structural separation of crawling infrastructure."
