Citation, please! UK regulator slaps Google with new publishing rules for search

The UK’s competition regulator has imposed new rules for Google search, in a bid to help publishers prevent their work from appearing in AI Overview results as well as to get links to their work instated in AI results. The Competition and Markets Authority imposed a new conduct requirement for Google search, which it promises …

[elsergiovolador]

Clown Market Authority strikes again

Wonderful. The CMA rides to the rescue of an industry that long ago stopped producing anything worth rescuing.

Let's be honest about what's actually "suffering" here. The vast majority of publishers don't generate news, they launder it. A wire copy lands from one of the big agencies, gets a fresh headline, a byline from someone who never left the office, and three paragraphs of "context" carefully shaped to never trouble whoever owns the masthead. Multiply that across forty outlets and you have what passes for a free press: the same story, forty times, none of it asked a single question anyone in power didn't want asked.

So forgive me if I don't weep that Google's robot now summarises the slop before you click. The summary is arguably the more honest product, since at least it doesn't pretend there was original reporting underneath.

For two decades the model was: take cheap syndicated content, wrap it in ads, harvest the clicks. AI Overviews just removed the click, and suddenly an entire sector discovers it has no reason to exist beyond the referral traffic it was always parasitic on.

Where's the investigative desk? Gone. Local news? A memory. The uncomfortable angle, the inconvenient source, the story that costs an advertiser? Quietly killed in the budget review years before any AI showed up. The regulator is busy preserving the husk and calling it the organism.

If publishers want "bargaining power," here's a radical idea: publish something a machine can't trivially reproduce from a press release. Independence from your proprietor would be a start. Until then, "fair exchange of value" is a polite way of demanding Google pay rent on content that was never worth the bandwidth.

Some of them deserve to perish. The market is finally agreeing.

[druck]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

If publishers want "bargaining power," here's a radical idea: publish something a machine can't trivially reproduce from a press release.

And have it snarfed by a bot and stuck in an AI summary before you blink.

Regardless of what you think of the content that is being ripped off, the important part is content is being ripped off, and will continue to be whether it is high quality or dross.

Now get back to your wine and steak.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

The "it'll get snarfed regardless" line sounds tough, but it falls apart the moment you think about how anyone actually clicks. If the content were worth a damn, the summary would be an advert for it, not a substitute. You read the three-line gist, realise there's something underneath worth your time, and click through. That's the whole mechanism by which good work has always travelled: the excerpt sells the original.

And the Overview links the sources anyway. So the only scenario where the summary "kills" the publisher is the one where the summary was already complete, where there was nothing past the excerpt worth the click. Which is an admission dressed up as a grievance. The theft being described isn't theft of valuable work. It's work whose entire value fit inside a snippet a bot could regurgitate, and now there's a demand for a regulator to paper over the fact that nobody wanted the rest of it.

"High quality or dross, it's still being ripped off" only lands if the quality genuinely makes no difference to whether people click through. And if that holds, the argument has told on itself: this is a sector that doesn't produce the kind of thing a reader chases past the headline.

[Richard 12]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

How exactly are you going to click if Google don't provide a link to the source?

That's what these CMA rules are about.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

I can see links to articles in Google AI summaries in my search results.

[Fred Dibnah]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

There is far more to the Internet than forty or so major news sites. Thousands, possibly millions, of people and groups publish original material, and they are losing clicks and income due to Google's (and Bing's, and DDG's) AI summaries. It's a real problem and it needs to be addressed, no matter what your personal view is on particular publishers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

Forcing AI search providers to clearly show sources for its information would hopefully have the byproduct of reducing hallucinations.... I have family members who will quote information from AI search without cross checking it, and it takes an annoying amount of time to find out whether the information is right or not. (Hint:- it's quicker to do a conventional search yourself than to trawl through the AI summary and the links buried in it....)

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

That doesn't eliminate hallucinations. For instance, many times I had Gemini produce sources of claims. Then you go to the source and there is no such claim there being made. Then you ask Gemini where it got information from and it says it made it up.

[Albert Coates]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

" I have family members who will quote information from AI search without cross checking it"

So simply ignore them, just leave them alone to fester in their slop-induced bubble.

[IGotOut]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

@elsergiovolador

Not to bright are you (proven many times).

Say you get your wet dream fantasy of all these publishers dieing, then where do you get your beloved AI summary (which has been proven multiple times to be incorrect).

As for "where is the investigative journalism?" try actually looking for it. 404 media or Gamers Nexus is a good start if you want tech news. For my local news, I use a very small independent one that is fantastic. But I guess you'd prefer a mega corp slop machine instead.

[Tron]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

quote: try actually looking for it.

I'm afraid your argument fails as it is based too much on your own behaviour. Good for you, searching out reliable, specialised news sites. But the overwhelming majority of people are lazy AF and only use the same major news source (such as the BBC) or the website of their favoured paper. British tabloids pander to their readership profiles/owners' politics and are full of clickbait, BS and junk. Most local papers in the UK now have a few pages of local news, the rest being syndicated. Most news websites are chock full of syndicated stuff from the US news agencies or 'The Conversation', which favours stories on how everyday things will end life on Earth.

Google AI tends to pull stuff from major sites and provides links to follow up (which it should keep doing). You can scroll down for more sources, but Search isn't what it was and most people are very, very lazy.

The CMA, like all UK govt quangos, is under orders to make the UK still appear relevant after it relegated itself in an orgy of xenophobia. Hence all the 'world first' crud we have to wade through in their PR bumf. No single nation other than the US can make major changes to GAFA behaviour. If they push too hard, they can be excluded, doing huge economic damage and making the govt. responsible massively unpopular.

The search summaries are good adverts for anyone who wants to read an article. They keep people who are looking for crossword puzzle answers from increasing your bandwidth costs.

[doublelayer]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

If that's your opinion, it's irrelevant to the discussion or it actually agrees with IGotOut. The disagreement so far is whether there is worthwhile media anymore. Elsergiovolador says no. Not a big surprise, given the previous complaints from the same source basically indicating that everything is terrible and everyone is simultaneously responsible for that and incapable of doing anything about it. If your objection is that good media does exist but people that should read it aren't doing so, then you disagree with that position, whether or not you and the others in opposition agree on what the good media is.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

“Not to bright are you (proven many times).”

Delicious irony.

[tiggity]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

@IGotOut

If you have a good local news source then you are fortunate.

In the UK the vast majority of small local newspapers were bought out & destroyed / hollowed out by a small number of big media companies.

My "local" paper mainly features news from nearest big city (instead of proper local news) & an increasing amount of generic dross news unrelated in any way (i.e. not relevant to county I live or even adjacent counties)

So, I can sympathise with some of those comments by @elsergiovolador

I produce the results for a local pub league - years ago, local paper would publish the local pub league 5 a side, skittles, pool, darts etc (which were provided freely & enthusiastically by people associated with those leagues as local people not attending matches or on mailing lists often still like to know the results & it's valuable publicity for the leagues* & participating pubs)

I (& my counterparts involved with other leagues) have not provided results for years now (ages ago we all received identikit emails stating results / league standings data no longer required) - and it's not as if they scrape the results from the relevant web sites instead.

The paper just no longer publishes the results

A similar lack of local reportage on other areas e.g. parish council activities etc.

There are a few enthusiasts who produce summaries of "what's on" locally, (which are great) but sadly nobody with the time & resources to produce "proper" local news

* You need a stream of new recruits as people retire from teams & need "new blood" to replace them and so people being aware the leagues exist is very helpful.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

Where's the investigative desk? Gone. Local news? A memory. The uncomfortable angle, the inconvenient source, the story that costs an advertiser? Quietly killed in the budget review years before any AI showed up.

On the contrary there is still plenty of all that which I encounter.

But I have noticed an increase in people just making shit up, bullshitting and lying, hoping others will simply believe them. And almost entirely from those on the right.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

On the contrary there is still plenty of all that which I encounter.

Links?

[Richard 12]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

Retch have tried very hard to kill them all, but there's still quite a few local online papers.

Whereabouts are you?

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

London

[Phil O'Sophical]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

an increase in people just making shit up, bullshitting and lying, hoping others will simply believe them. And almost entirely from those on the right.

Or perhaps you don't notice the equal amounts of bullshit coming from the left because it agrees with your own biases?

[Rikki Tikki]

Re: Clown Market Authority strikes again

"And almost entirely from those on the right."

I've caught the Grauniad recently reporting several 'made up' stories relating to Australia (possibly copied from AI sources without checking).

So no, it's not just "the right". I feel it's probably best not to politicise this, there's crap coming from all quarters. We need to be aware of this and try not to let our biases get in the way of assessing content.

[amanfromMars 1]

When walking while talking is different from talking while walking

If publishers want "bargaining power," here's a radical idea: publish something a machine can't trivially reproduce from a press release. ..... elsergiovolador

Comments published here on El Reg can easily provide and reinforce "bargaining power" for agents and AIgents remarking on situations being trailed and trialed for possible future acceptance via the series of nested threads published for public viewing which can practically be imagined as a relatively anonymous, virtually autonomous, remote peer review facility.

The Register is to lauded and applauded for such a generous free of charge provision,.

Whether The Register itself has the cojones investigative curiosity to further pursue a greater clarity and expanded understanding of what in most every worthy case of further situation publishing has the innate ability and capacity to be fundamentally disturbing and revolutionary progressive in equally effective measure is not something I have enough information on to honestly comment on.

[Irongut]

People still use Google search? How quaint.

[Fred Dibnah]

Unfortunately yes, a large percentage of people still use Google search. Partly because Alphabet have paid huge sums to Apple, Mozilla et al and because of Android, but mainly because it's the only search engine most people have heard of. I try to tell people I know to use a different search engine, but they have to have a reason why they should switch and that can take a bit of explaining.

Still, I shouldn't complain. I still use Yahoo! mail :-)

[elsergiovolador]

Many people believe "Google search" is the Internet.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Many people believe "Google search" is the Internet.

and X is The Truth amongst even more deranged codswallop.

[Bebu sa Ware]

People still use Google search? How quaint.

Yes but increasingly confused by the first four or five search results that offer to sell the intrinsically unavailable search term from Temu, Ebay, Amazon ad naus.

I see it myself with an epub reader that is hardwired to use google search. I got some strange results looking for the meaning of "going like one o'clock" — apparently obsolete meaning rapidly; not be confused with like one o'clock half struck which might mean gormless.

Either way I can get free delivery from Temu or Aliexpress — presumambly like one o'clock. I would actually appreciate the humour if they shipped a non·working clock stuck on one o'clock but it would actually be working and never be the right time.

[Dinanziame]

Is there a new requirement?

The AI overviews in Google already contain some links that are supposed to support the answer. Does this new law have some bite that will force Google to improve the feature, or is this just a theatrical move to claim something is being done without actually achieving anything? Is there any clear way to measure improvements, or will they regularly fine Google for not doing well enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

I miss the early days

Searching the Internet used to turn up some absolute gold.

Now, it’s just corporate shills, scams and celebrity news.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Searching the Internet used to turn up some absolute gold.

It's still gold if you have a paddock that requires a decent application of manure.

[PB90210]

"negotiate content deals with Google"

Paying them...