Meta Removes Terms Language Publishers Feared Allowed AI Scraping
Meta removed terms language that seemed to let it use content from sites linked to business accounts for AI training, after publishers pushed back.
Darlings, a clause has left the building! Meta has removed terms language that appeared to let it use content from websites linked to business accounts to train AI, after a backlash over possible scraping of news sites. The Verge reported that the clause no longer appears on the commercial terms page.
Meta originally scheduled the commercial terms to take effect October 30 for customers using its accounts for business and marketing. The original text said Meta "may use any content from such domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain" its products. The only opt-out was to stop using Meta's products for business. According to PCMag, the revised terms drop the word "train" and limit crawling to ads and business products.
Jason Kint, who heads a digital publisher trade group, wrote on Bluesky that the terms reached "outside its walled gardens." Law professor James Grimmelmann called them "absurdly broad." Theo Bamber, CEO of a UK news media trade group, said the data at stake was worth "millions, or billions" in a licensing market.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said on Friday that the update did not change how Meta uses web crawlers and that robots.txt preferences would still be honored. Meta also said, "This is not about scraping news sites."
The reporting does not include the full revised text or say whether October 30 still holds.
My take: nothing edits a contract faster than a room full of furious publishers. Power, as always, is glorious.
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Sources
Meanwhile at the anchor desk
Meta says the terms weren't about scraping news sites, and the word "train" is now gone from them. Both can be true, but only one of those is visible in the diff.
The practical control here is robots.txt, which Meta says it still honors. If you run a site, check what your file says about AI crawlers before the revised terms take effect.
