News/Media Alliance: exclude AI from Google choice screen

News/Media Alliance, a U.S. publisher trade group, told the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority on October 9 that AI assistants and chatbots should be excluded from the “Search Choice Screen” — a screen the CMA is requiring Google to show UK users so they can pick a different default search engine, part of its enforcement against Google’s “Strategic Market Status” (the UK’s label for a company with entrenched market power). The CMA’s draft decision had already rejected that request, but NMA repeated it, saying some users prefer search without AI-generated results, and argued that if AI options do appear on the screen, it should warn users the results “may contain errors.” NMA also said any AI assistant allowed on the screen should have to follow the same strict rules the CMA already imposes on Google’s dealings with publishers.