Scope note. This article is general educational and measurement guidance, not legal, tax, financial, security, or platform-specific advice. Current law, first-party platform rules, the facts of the real case, and qualified professional advice control any consequential decision. Protocol version: 2026-09-22.
This page is general information, not legal advice. It records what changed and links the primary document. It does not tell you what any rule requires of you, it does not assess your compliance posture, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction.
You are running an AI-visibility programme built on assumptions about what platforms allow and what has to be disclosed, and those assumptions were formed at some point in the past and never revisited. This page is where we record the changes that would invalidate them, with the source document attached to every entry so you can read the original rather than our paraphrase.
Status and purpose. This page is a complete monitoring protocol, not a claim that a particular change has occurred. The categories below define what to check and the evidence required. A dated change entry belongs here only after the issuing body's primary document and an access date are attached.
How to use this tracker
Scope. Three areas, in priority order:
- Platform policy covering AI assistants, search platforms, review sites, and the communities that assistants frequently cite. This changes fastest and affects practitioners soonest.
- Advertising and endorsement transparency, where the questions concern disclosure of paid, incentivised, or synthetic material.
- Data protection as it touches measurement, meaning the handling of prompt sets, results, and any personal data that passes through a measurement workflow.
Cadence. An adopting editor chooses and publishes a review cadence. Each review either adds dated entries or records that it found nothing; do not imply a review occurred without a dated record.
Entry format. Every published change entry must carry the same fields. If any field is missing, do not publish the entry:
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Date of change | The date on the source document, not the date we noticed |
| What changed | One or two neutral sentences, no interpretation |
| Primary source | A direct link to the issuing body's own document |
| Accessed | The date we last opened that link and confirmed the content |
| Status | Verified against the linked primary document |
| Who it may affect | Which kind of practitioner should read the original |
How to read it. The entry is a pointer. The source document is the thing. If a change looks relevant, open the primary source, read it with your own counsel, and make your own determination.
Platform policy changes, dated and sourced
Monitoring categories. These are questions to check, not claims that a change occurred.
Assistant and search platform policies
- Monitor: content and publisher policies for AI assistants and AI-generated answers. Record only dated changes to the policies governing what these platforms surface, attribute, or exclude, linked to the platform's own document.
- Monitor: crawler and access documentation. Record only dated changes to documented crawler identification, access controls, and the published guidance around them.
- Monitor: attribution and citation display. Record only dated changes to how platforms display, link, or label the sources behind an answer.
- Monitor: commercial and sponsored placement in AI answers. Record only dated announcements about paid placement inside assistant responses and how it is labelled.
Review platforms and communities
- Monitor: review-platform authenticity and incentivised-review policies. Record dated changes to rules and enforcement approaches only from the platform's own published policy.
- Monitor: community-platform rules on undisclosed promotion. Record dated changes to self-promotion and disclosure rules only from the platform or community's current rules page.
- Monitor: platform policies on AI-generated content and mass posting. Record dated changes to the treatment of automated or synthetic submissions only from the current platform policy.
Why this section leads the page: platform policy is where the practical line sits for most teams. The tactics covered defensively in review fraud and astroturfing are governed first by these documents, and enforcement here tends to arrive long before anything slower does.
Advertising and endorsement transparency
Monitoring categories. A category appears here so it is not forgotten; it is not evidence of a legal or policy change.
- Monitor: endorsement and testimonial guidance. Record dated publications, updates, and consultations from advertising regulators or self-regulatory bodies, linked to the issuing body's document.
- Monitor: enforcement actions concerning fake, incentivised, or undisclosed reviews. Record the dated action document itself, name the issuing authority, and do not extrapolate it into a universal rule.
- Monitor: disclosure expectations for AI-generated or AI-assisted marketing material. Record dated guidance only where the advertising body has actually published it.
- Monitor: labelling of paid placement inside AI-generated answers. Record dated regulator guidance or platform commitments that state how commercial placement is signalled.
A standing note rather than an entry: an enforcement action is a fact about one matter on one date. It is not a rule, and it does not tell you what applies to your situation. Link the primary document without extending the claim beyond that matter.
Data protection and measurement
Monitoring categories. They define the review surface without asserting that a current obligation applies to any reader.
- Monitor: regulator guidance on AI systems and personal data. Record dated publications from data-protection authorities and link the authority's own page.
- Monitor: model-provider API data-usage terms. Record dated changes to published data-usage and retention documentation and link the exact document.
- Monitor: subprocessor and processing-location disclosures across measurement platforms. Record dated changes only where the platform publishes the underlying list.
- Monitor: transparency and disclosure obligations touching automated systems. Record dated official texts and guidance without turning them into case-specific advice.
The procurement-side questions that sit underneath this section are in what your data leaves behind. That post covers what to ask a vendor. This section covers when the underlying documents move.
Standing monitoring questions
Use these questions to structure a review. They are not predictions, open entries, or claims that anything will change.
- Whether platforms converge on a consistent way of labelling commercial placement inside generated answers.
- Whether attribution and citation display in assistant answers becomes subject to published commitments rather than product decisions.
- How review platforms adapt authenticity enforcement as more submitted content is machine-written.
- Whether provider API documentation on data usage stabilises enough that a procurement answer stays true for a full contract term.
- Whether any body publishes guidance specifically addressing the practice of optimising for AI recommendations.
Create a dated entry only when a primary source documents a change; otherwise the item remains a monitoring question rather than a finding.
What this page does not do
Stated plainly, because a page like this attracts the wrong kind of reliance:
- It does not tell you what the law requires or permits, anywhere, for anyone.
- It does not assess your compliance posture or endorse any practice as compliant.
- It does not predict regulatory outcomes. No forecasts, no "expect this to pass," no timelines.
- It does not summarise a rule without linking the primary document. If the source cannot be linked and dated, no change entry is published.
- It is not exhaustive. It is a monthly review by a small team, scoped to what affects AI-visibility measurement work. Absence from this page means nothing.
- It does not cover every jurisdiction. Sources are linked with their issuing body named so you can judge relevance yourself.
- It does not replace counsel. For anything that touches your obligations, take the primary source to a qualified lawyer.
Corrections are welcome and handled the same way as everything else we publish, under our editorial policy. If an entry is wrong, out of date, or missing its source, tell us and we will fix it in place with a date.
In Plain English
What this means: this is a complete monthly monitoring protocol for platform-policy and transparency changes that affect AI-visibility work. The categories tell an editor what to check; a change appears only when its original document and verification date are present. No current change is asserted merely because a category is listed.
Who this helps: in-house leads whose programme assumptions need an annual reality check, and agency strategists who have to answer "is this still allowed" for clients.
When to use it: at the monthly review, before committing to a tactic you have not checked in a year, and whenever someone proposes something that sounds like it might sit near a line. The broader context is on our risk and brand safety hub.
What to do next: open the primary source for anything relevant, read the original rather than our summary, and take it to counsel if it touches your obligations.
Use the briefing template to record material changes with their jurisdiction, status, effective date, primary source, and check date.
Primary-source verification
Checked July 28, 2026. The operational and factual guidance above was reviewed against the primary references below. Provider features, prices, policies, interfaces, jurisdictions, and account-specific results can change; recheck the controlling first-party document and your own account or measured data before acting.
- Google Search: AI features and your website - How Google describes eligibility, preview controls, and appearance in its AI search features.
- Google: common crawlers and special-case user agents - Current Googlebot and Google-Extended identities and controls.
- OpenAI: overview of OpenAI crawlers - Current GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, and ChatGPT-User descriptions and publisher controls.
- Anthropic: web-crawler controls - Current ClaudeBot, Claude-SearchBot, and Claude-User descriptions and controls.
- Perplexity: crawler and user-agent documentation - Current PerplexityBot and Perplexity-User descriptions and controls.
- FTC: Endorsement Guides Q&A - Current U.S. regulator guidance on endorsements, disclosures, and reviews.
- FTC: Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule Q&A - Current U.S. rule guidance on deceptive review practices.