The New Dark Age

Friday, 5 May 2026 — Foxglove

As co-founder of Foxglove, I’m writing to you with a major victory – and possibly one of the biggest impacts Foxglove has ever had.

With AI Overviews (AIO), Google has revealed its plan to use its monopoly power over online search to crush a crucial part of our democracy – independent news.

But that is all about to change – journalists will now have the power to opt out from Google AIO stealing the work of hard-working reporters without paying for it.

Under new rules announced this week by the UK competition regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), news publishers will be able to stop Google stealing their articles to feed its auto-generated summaries.

We have been pushing the CMA to do exactly this for the last year – and it looks like in response to our complaint they have finally stood up to Google and acted decisively.

It is a historic moment. National regulators are one of the few actors with the power to stop companies like Google – and this is the first time a campaign like ours has led to such fundamental change from any regulator anywhere in the world against a Big Tech giant.

For this campaign we commissioned expert evidence and research, exposing the devastating impact Google AIO is having on the UK’s independent news industry – a drop in traffic to news websites of up to 79%. And we worked with our partners to form an international legal team to challenge Google and push the UK regulator to act.

Until now, the only way for journalists to stop Google stealing their work was to opt out from being visible at all in Google search. With Google controlling almost all search, that is effectively removing themselves from the internet entirely.

And AIO doesn’t only take work without payment, it also makes it harder for journalists to directly reach their audience – threatening their survival. Without independent journalism, it becomes far harder to hold powerful governments and corporations, not least Big Tech giants, to account.

This week’s CMA announcement comes after Brazil’s watchdog recently became the latest to launch a formal investigation into Google AIO, joining the European DG-COMP, which began last year.

We are now working to ensure that the CMA’s announcement will embolden these regulators, and others around the world, to take similar decisive action against Google.

We still have concerns that implementation of the new UK rules needs to go faster to end the ongoing damage to our news industry, and to protect the integrity of our free and fair press. Further action may also be needed to ensure effective scrutiny of Google’s compliance with the new rules.

More to come on that soon as it develops. But, for today, this is a huge victory for independent media, for informed democracy, and a historic moment for our ongoing fight to challenge the power of Big Tech.

Thank you for being part of it.

PS: This is a historic moment and one of the biggest impacts Foxglove has ever had. What we do works. We can challenge the power of Big Tech, and win. For more of the same, please support our work with a one-off or monthly donation here: http://www.foxglove.org.uk/donate