CMA keeps the yearly search prompt Google wanted swapped for a settings menu

The design difference between what Google asked for and what the regulator kept is who has to remember. A settings toggle waits for a user with a grievance to go looking for it. An annual prompt arrives whether anyone is unhappy or not ^[4].

Under the proposal an Android buyer sees a list of search services when setting up the phone, and a Chrome user sees one the first time the browser opens ^[3]. Both are asked again every twelve months ^[2]. A handset kept three years therefore puts the default in front of its owner four times, once at setup and once a year after ^[15]. UK users can already change provider today ^[10].

Gemini is built into Google Search, while ChatGPT and Perplexity are separate services that would need custom integrations to sit in the same slot ^[11]. The published proposals do not say who does that engineering work.

I would expect the conditions of entry to bind harder than the cadence. A screen is a one-off build, and clear attribution of publisher content changes what a qualifying assistant's answer has to contain ^[6]. The counter-thesis is compounding: one prompt moves whatever share of users it moves, an annual prompt gets to move them again, and Google spent its own submission arguing the repetition would frustrate people ^[4]. The CMA did not publish a switching estimate. If the first annual cycle shifts single-digit percentages, this is a screen and Google keeps the traffic. If it shifts double digits, a default that used to hold by inertia has to be re-won every year.

Comments close on October 9, and the CMA expects to decide by the end of 2026 ^[7]. That is about fourteen months after it opened the case in October 2025, on the back of Google's strategic market status in general search and search advertising ^[8][16]. The regulator first proposed search choice rules in early 2026 and says the revision reflects how quickly search behaviour is changing ^[9]. It has already imposed publisher controls in June, then fair ranking and data portability requirements ^[12]. The Professional Publishers Association has sought an exemption ^[13], and the News Media Association warned the changes could send less traffic to publishers ^[14].