Meta removes ToS language that suggested it could scrape websites "associated with" business accounts, saying it applied only to "ads and business products" (Terrence O'Brien/The Verge)
Language that experts say allowed the scraping of news sites to train its AI has been removed from Meta's terms.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has recently announced plans to introduce terms that would allow it to collect content from websites associated with its business customers. This new contractual language will take effect on October 30, 2026.
The move affects businesses utilizing Meta's services, including WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, and its advertising platform. More than a million businesses currently employ Meta's AI agents across these platforms.
Meta defines a business customer as one who uses ads or marketing messages, sells or lists products, develops apps, creates or uses a product catalog, manages a Page or Group for business purposes, or uses any business product such as Ads Manager or Meta Business Suite.
According to the new terms, Meta is granted the right to use automated software, like web scrapers or bots, to access, index, cache, analyze, collect, retrieve, and crawl the domains, web pages, or URLs associated with a business's products or services. Meta can also periodically pull updates from these online locations.
This decision has been met with criticism. Danielle Coffey, president and CEO of the News/Media Alliance, condemned Meta's move, calling it outrageous and potentially illegal. She argued that the company's decision to withhold access to its audience unless businesses permit content scraping is a bad-faith policy and an abuse of Meta's market power.
Law professor Eric Goldman from Santa Clara University School of Law highlighted procedural and substantive issues with Meta's revised terms of service. Goldman questioned how Meta can enforce these changes without offering businesses a genuine option to reject them, especially if the business has already prepaid for services.
Goldman also raised concerns about Meta's history of data harvesting and its disregard for user privacy and mental health, citing past controversies like the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the social media addiction settlement. He suggested that Meta's revised terms could set a precedent for similar abuses in the future.
Meta has not yet responded to inquiries regarding these new terms.
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