UPDATE 10/28: Meta now says it won’t update its ads and business terms until it can consult with the industry, spokesman Andy Stone tweeted today.
“We’re committed to getting this right, and…we expect this consultation could extend beyond November 20, in which case we’d delay implementation of the updated terms. Until then, our existing terms remain in place.”
UPDATE 10/16: Meta appears to have amended the commercial terms to address publishers’ concerns.
“The crawling terms we consolidated only applied to our ads and business products, and we’ve clarified that in the terms themselves,” it says. “It does not change how Meta uses web crawlers. As always, content owners can use robots.txt to signal their preferences. This is not about scraping news sites, and these updates don’t give us new rights that supersede those preferences.”
The new terms seem to have removed the word “train” from the section that alarmed publishers. The revised section also mentions applying the web scraping specifically to “advertising and business products.”
Original Story:
A change to Meta’s commercial terms of service is raising concerns that the company will be free to scrape content from numerous third-party sites for AI training purposes.
As Nieman Lab reports, Meta plans to enact new commercial terms on Oct. 30 that apply to customers who use the company’s social media accounts for business and marketing purposes. The document includes an eyebrow-raising section under “License & Rights You Provide” that effectively allows Meta to use automated software to scrape URLs and domains associated with the user’s account.
(Credit: Meta)
“Meta may use any content from such domains, web pages, or URLs to provide, develop, improve, research, train, and maintain the integrity of, the Meta Company Products, services, and features,” the section adds.
The new terms are raising alarm bells in the media industry since many news outlets have business accounts with Meta. Jason Kint, who leads a trade group for digital media publishers, suggested that Meta wants to “grant itself the rights to scrape websites across the open web.”
“This isn’t just when you post your content on Meta. These new terms reach outside its walled gardens to any websites ‘associated with your products,’” he wrote on Bluesky. “Potentially powering its AI empire, including Muse, without licensing deals. And if you keep using its services, Meta claims you consented.”
Theo Bamber, CEO of a UK news media trade group, also gave a harsh reaction, saying: “This is absolutely nuts.”
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“This detail, buried in a pile of other stuff, will see Meta scraping data worth millions, or billions, in a licensing market,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “Yes, it needs to be legally tested, but the idea they think they can just get away with it is staggering. Saying this is arrogant behavior doesn’t really touch the sides.”
The other glaring issue is that Meta appears to offer no opt-out, merely saying: “If you do not agree to the updated terms, you may stop all access or use of our Products for business or commercial purposes.”
However, a Meta spokesperson is pushing back against fears that the new commercial terms are intended to support the company’s already controversial AI training efforts, which are facing lawsuits. “This is false. There’s no change to how Meta uses web crawlers,” spokesman Andy Stone tweeted on Friday.
He points out that Meta’s automated software will still respect the Robots.txt file that web domains have long used, which can prohibit search engine indexing and web crawlers focused on AI training. “As always, content owners can use robots.txt flags to indicate their preferences,” he added. “This update is designed to make sure we’re able to pull accurate information about products for sale on third-party websites when making on-platform ad and content recommendations, not about scraping news sites.”
Still, Nieman Lab spoke with legal experts who argue that the new commercial terms give Meta legal cover to pursue web scraping, despite any blocking instructions. “Journalists are not taking crazy pills, Meta’s new scraping terms really are absurdly broad,” posted James Grimmelmann, a law professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech.
About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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