So Google has to show UK users a screen letting them pick their default search engine, it's a competition remedy under the new DMCCA law. Publishers just filed with the regulator to make sure ChatGPT and Perplexity don't get a slot on that screen next to Google and Bing.
Sounds backwards right, publishers usually want more competition against Google. But the actual argument is about what happens after the click. Pick Bing as your default and you still get a page of links, you still click through to a publisher's site. Pick ChatGPT as your default and it just answers you inside its own chat window, no click, no referral traffic, nothing.
So the fight isn't really about competition at all, it's a definitional one: does "search engine" mean "ranks and returns links" or does it mean "answers your question directly". The UK's competition regulator (the CMA) hasn't ruled yet, and whichever way it goes basically decides whether chatbots get treated as search engines going forward, at least in the UK.
Anyone know if there's an equivalent fight happening in the EU or US yet, or is the UK first to actually force this definition into a real regulatory decision?
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