The Competition and Markets Authority has published its first proposed conduct requirements under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, marking a milestone in UK digital markets regulation. Following Google’s Strategic Market Status designation in October 2025, the CMA has issued four consultations addressing distinct concerns within Google’s general search services ecosystem. These proposals represent the first substantive deployment of the DMCCA’s conduct requirement powers and offer valuable insights into the UK’s emerging approach to platform regulation.
By Anush Ganesh
The Four Conduct Requirements
The CMA’s package addresses four interconnected concerns. The Publisher Conduct Requirement tackles the fundamental asymmetry between Google and web publishers arising from AI-generated responses. Over the past two years, Google has introduced features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, built using content crawled for search purposes, yet publishers face declining referrals and limited visibility over how their content fuels these novel systems. The Fair Ranking Conduct Requirement addresses concerns about non-discrimination, transparency and complaints processes regarding organic ranking decisions. The User Choice Conduct Requirement proposes improvements to choice architecture through enhanced choice screens, a test-drive functionality and centralised default settings. The Data Portability Conduct Requirement seeks to formalise Google’s voluntary provision of its DMA-compliant data portability API for UK users.
Publisher Controls: Unbundling Search and AI
The Publisher CR‘s central insight is that Google’s dominance in search creates what might be termed compelled consent. Publishers must allow Google’s crawler to access their content to appear in search results, but that crawled content now powers AI features that reduce traffic back to those same publishers. The CMA’s evidence indicates that for queries triggering an AI Overview, clicks to publisher sites decrease by a significant (though redacted) percentage. Meanwhile, publishers’ existing options to opt out of AI features carry substantial costs, with Google’s own study showing that removing snippets reduced traffic by nearly half.
The proposed requirement establishes three categories of obligations. First, Google must provide effective controls allowing publishers to withhold their content from training and grounding of broader generative AI services and from grounding within search generative AI features, without suffering downranking in traditional search results. Second, Google must publish clear information explaining how content is used and provide publishers with metrics on user engagement. Third, Google must take reasonable steps to ensure sufficient attribution when using publisher content in AI features.
The CMA’s rejection of crawler separation as an alternative remedy demonstrates the proportionality-focused nature of UK regulation. While separate crawlers for search and AI purposes might have been effective, the CMA found that such an approach would impose costs significantly exceeding those of improved content controls, with illustrative third-party data transfer costs alone of at least £25 to £50 million annually from a 30 per cent increase in crawling.
Fair Ranking: Addressing Information Asymmetries
The Fair Ranking CR responds to stakeholder concerns about insufficient notice when Google implements ranking algorithm changes. One specialised search provider submitted that a complex update may absorb 500 to 1000 person-hours, quickly becoming a six-figure operational burden. The CMA proposes that Google provide at least 30 business days’ notice before material changes take effect, alongside a clear complaints process and alternative dispute settlement mechanism for publishers manually excluded from its search index.
The proportionality assessment reveals the CMA’s confidence in the intervention: with costs to Google of up to £15 million over five years against economic value of search services exceeding £80 to £160 billion, the CR would need to generate less than 0.01 per cent improvement in economic value to exceed its costs. This framing positions conduct requirements as modest regulatory interventions with potentially significant welfare effects.
User Choice: Testing Behavioural Remedies
The User Choice CR addresses limitations with existing UK choice screens, including limited coverage excluding an estimated 15 to 35 million devices annually, narrow eligibility with no generative AI-based services currently included, and low frequency with only approximately 20 per cent of Android devices shown a choice screen annually. The proposed remedy extends coverage, introduces a test-drive function allowing users to select a provider for a short period (suggested at 14 days) before confirming their choice, and requires a Device-Level Default Setting allowing users to select a single search provider across multiple access points.
The proportionality threshold is notably low: benefits would exceed costs if at least roughly 30,000 to 50,000 additional switches occurred per year, representing less than 0.5 per cent of additional choice screen showings. This suggests the CMA views choice screens primarily as competitive discipline mechanisms rather than tools for immediate market share shifts.
Data Portability: Regulatory Arbitrage and Investment Certainty
The Data Portability CR presents an intriguing case of formalising voluntary compliance. Google already provides its DMA-compliant data portability API to UK users voluntarily, but stakeholders highlighted that this creates investment uncertainty. Gener8 described the current situation as a real existential risk, while a startup explained that formalisation would increase business viability in investors’ eyes, leading to lower cost of capital.
The proposed CR takes a notably light-touch approach, permitting Google to comply simply by making its Article 6(9) DMA Data Portability API available in relation to UK End Users on the same terms as within the EEA. This alignment with EU requirements suggests the CMA recognises the practical benefits of regulatory convergence for businesses operating across jurisdictions, while the reference to Open Banking’s estimated £4 billion value to the UK economy signals ambitions for similar ecosystem development around data portability.
Comparative Observations
These consultations illuminate several distinctive features of the UK’s emerging approach to digital markets regulation. First, the evidence-based methodology is striking. Each consultation includes detailed proportionality assessments with quantified cost-benefit analyses, explicit consideration of alternative remedies, and careful calibration of requirements to identified harms. This stands in contrast to the DMA’s more categorical approach, where obligations apply uniformly to designated gatekeepers regardless of market-specific circumstances.
Second, the consultations reveal sophisticated thinking about the relationship between market power and meaningful choice. The Publisher CR‘s insight that Google’s dominance creates compelled consent, and its attempt to unbundle search crawling from AI training, represents a nuanced understanding of how platform power operates in practice.
Third, the timing and sequencing merit attention. By publishing all four conduct requirements simultaneously, the CMA signals a comprehensive approach to Google’s search ecosystem rather than piecemeal intervention. The six-month implementation period with monthly progress reporting suggests close regulatory engagement during the transition to compliance.
This preference for targeted behavioural requirements are characteristic of the UK’s bespoke approach distinct from the EU’s more prescriptive Digital Markets Act framework.
Questions for Further Consideration
Several questions arise from these consultations. The Publisher CR’s reliance on Google-provided controls raises questions about regulatory dependency on the regulated entity’s technical architecture. The Fair Ranking CR’s 30-day notice requirement must balance publishers’ legitimate interests against Google’s ability to respond to spam and other quality concerns. The User Choice CR’s test-drive function is innovative but untested at scale, and its interaction with existing user habits and switching costs remains uncertain.
There are questions raised about the relationship between UK and EU digital markets regulation. The Data Portability CR’s explicit alignment with Article 6(9) DMA requirements suggests practical recognition that divergent UK standards would impose costs on businesses and potentially disadvantage UK users.
In conclusion, the CMA’s evidence-based, proportionate approach to the three of the four CRs demonstrates meaningful regulatory independence in methodology. The consultation deadline is 25 February 2026. SCiDA will be submitting a response and will continue to monitor developments in UK digital markets regulation.
